P R 

43t,3 
A? 

1901 



►C Silver Scries 

of vm:\im mi 
merican Classics 



EDITED B^ 



X * " «. \ 



tf & Com party 




Class ?! 

Book ,Al 



Copyright^ 



V u 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 




THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY. 



The Silver Series of English and American Classics 



MACAULAY'S 



LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME 



EDITED, WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES 
BY 

DUFFIELD OSBORNE 




SILVER, BURDETT AND COMPANY 

NEW YORK BOSTON CHICAGO 



^ 






THE LIBRARY OF 

CONGRESS, 
Two Copies Received 

APR. 29 1901 

Copyright entry 
CLASS #/XXc. n* 

copy a 



Copyright, 1901, 
By SILVER, BUEDETT & COM PAX Y. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION 7 

AUTHOR'S PREFACE 15 

Horatius . . 39 

Battle of the Lake Regillus ...... 6o 

Virginia 99 

The Prophecy of Capys . . . . . . . .121 

NOTES 137 



EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION. 



The writings of few Englishmen have received higher 
praise and sharper criticism than have those of Thomas 
Babington Macaulay. A man of profound learning and 
strongly defined ideas of men and affairs, he treated of 
times and topics that have been a fruitful source of partisan 
wrath ; and, when research and logic seemed to lead to con- 
demnation, his sentence fell with all the crushing weight of 
a style at once trenchant and lucid. Time and its revolu- 
tions of events and ideas, national resentments, and politi- 
cal necessities have united to bring into public prominence 
many champions of those whom Macaulay condemned, and 
it is little to be wondered at that such champions should be 
found eager to assail the pen that writ their clients down 
for hatred and contempt. Macaulay has been accused of all 
manner of prejudice as an historian and a biographer. Even 
that style which gave his blows so much of their weight 
and sting has been decried as artificial ; all the forces of 
literary aberrations and affectations have been mustered 
into the service against him, and, in order that his* oppo- 
nents might have some name about which to rally, the harsh 
and crabbed Carlyle has been put forward as a model whose 
disciples must of necessity condemn the grace and fluency 
of the man upon whose reputation the vials of partisan 
wrath were to be emptied. 

7 



8 editor's introduction. 

So the battle has been waged with a bitterness seldom 
shown over the works of dead rivals ; but so long as per- 
spicuity, force, and beauty — the perfect selection of words 
and the measured proportion of sentences and ideas — are 
held to be fair ground of author's praise, so long Macaulay 
must stand in the forefront. If these be marks of arti- 
ficiality, then we must admit, perforce, that artificiality pos- 
sesses points which merit being well inquired into by those 
who would excel with the pen. 

As for the strength of the case made out against Macau- 
lay's justice and reliability, controversy would fall within 
the scope of a discussion of his history or his essays, 
rather than within that of this introduction. I cannot, 
however, refrain from commenting that a much more bitter 
partisanship than his seems to characterize the writings of 
his detractors, and that I know of very few instances where 
his facts and judgments have suffered by comparison with 
the revisions suggested or demanded. 

To briefly summarize his life, Thomas Babington Mac- 
aulay, the son of Zachary Macaulay, West India merchant 
and philanthropist, was born at Rothley Temple, Leicester- 
shire, October 25th, 1800. After a childhood, the remark- 
able precocity of which leads wonder almost to the point 
of incredulity, he entered Trinity College, Cambridge, in 
1818, and, in 1819, won the Chancellor's medal by his poem 
entitled " Pompeii." Another medal and a scholarship 
were conferred soon after, and, in 1822, the degree of B.A. 
Later he received a fellowship, and, in 1825, the degree of 
M.A. Meanwhile his pen had been busy with essays and 
poems contributed to many periodicals. At the age of 



editor's introduction. 9 

twenty-five the essay on "Milton" shows him in the full 
maturity of his marvellous power. Called to the bar in 
1826, but never undertaking its practice, he soon plunged 
into the vortex of politics. Entering Parliament in 1830, 
he went to India in 1834, as member of the Supreme Council, 
where he prepared his famous Indian Penal Code. In 1838 
he returned home and in 1839 resumed his seat in Parlia- 
ment, becoming war secretary in 1840. In 1846 he became 
paymaster-general, but in 1847 his advocacy of the May- 
nooth Grant lost him his seat. Five years later the same 
constituency (Edinburgh) elected him unsolicited. Mean- 
while he had been employed upon his history, a work con- 
tinued almost to the time of his death, Avhich occurred in 
London, December 28th, 1859. Many honors were con- 
ferred upon him during his life by English and foreign 
universities, academies, and potentates, and, in the year 
1857, he was raised to the peerage under the title of Baron 
Macaulay of Rothley. He never married. 

Macaulay w r as at all times a consistent whig in politics. 
Outside of his untiring and many-sided activity, his chival- 
rous support of the weak and the oppressed is perhaps the 
most marked as well as the most honorable feature of his 
career. His first speech in Parliament was in support of 
the bill to repeal the civil disabilities of the Jews ; his 
Indian Penal Code was characterized by a humanity toward 
the native population quite new to the policy of the con- 
querors of India; while his advocacy of the Roman Catho- 
lic Relief Bill and of government support for the Roman 
Catholic college at Maynooth brought him the only great 
rebuff ever received during his career, the defeat in the 



10 editor's introduction. 

Edinburgh election, which called forth his noble "Lines 
Written on the Night of the 30th of July, 1847." It would 
be well for those who fail in the seeking for political pre- 
ferment, could more of them receive their failure in such a 
cause and in such a spirit. Americans should never forget 
Macaulay's deep appreciation of Washington, voiced in the 
closing words of his Essay on John Hampden, which read : 
" It was when the vices and ignorance which the old tyranny 
had generated threatened the new freedom with destruction 
that England missed the sobriety, the self-command, the per- 
fect soundness of judgment, the perfect rectitude of inten- 
tion to which history furnishes no parallel, or furnishes a 
parallel in Washington alone." 

Turning to the literary Macauiay, we find first of all a 
versatility that few writers have equalled. Primarily, per- 
haps, he is known best as a historian and an essayist. Once 
he wrote a fragment of a novel, once a fragment of a play, 
thrown off as if to see what he might accomplish in these 
lines were his time not absorbed in weightier labors ; while 
through all, was continued the work of the orator, the legis- 
lator, the administrator of his country's government. It is 
with none of these, however, but with Macauiay as a poet 
that we have now to deal, limiting our study of him, even 
in this line, to that series of poems which has acquired the 
greatest popularity : " The Lays of Ancient Rome," pub- 
lished in 1842. 

It is a fashion among certain would-be consistent critics to 
decry the author of " The Lays " as being a mere versifier, a 
writer of clever jingle. For the men who would limit poetry 
within these or those narrow lines, the theorists who start 



editor's introduction. 11 

with a theory and a woe-betide-the-facts-that-stand-against-it 
attitude, I have nothing to say. They are the little men in 
literature : critics — and that is all. " Poetry " is, I con- 
ceive, a word much too broad to be limitable by any principle 
of thought or method of treatment. It speaks first to the 
heart, and it speaks in that vague but forceful tongue that 
only the heart can fully comprehend. The mind may study 
its language, but after all, the mind is a foreigner, and to 
such the tongue of Poetry is strange and complex and 
arbitrary. Only he whose heart is great enough to feel its 
messages may presume to receive them, and that with rever- 
ence and all humility. It is the literary Prankensteins, 
laboring over the product of their self-conceit and their 
affectations, who produce an anatomical poetry almost com- 
parable to the monster that sprang from study devoid of 
soul. 

Happy is he whose heart responds to the grand swing of 
Milton, the soulful melody of Keats, the deep insight of 
Shakespeare, and whose spirit yet tells him that poets as 
well are they who have struck the lyre to lighter measure, 
the singers of petty things and quaint conceits, the race of 
the trouveres, whose ballads of stirring deeds, set to lilting 
measures, ring through the centuries from the days when 
all Provence hung upon the judgments of her courts of 
love, to when Scott and Macaulay laid a like tribute at the 
feet of like exploits. 

Unlike, however, other makers of ballad poetry, Mac- 
aulay alone has endeavored to sing the songs of times and 
of a nation long passed away, and to sing them in the 
simulated voices of singers whose bones are dust, and 



12 editor's introduction. 

whose names and works are buried under the mountain of 
two thousand years. For such a task there must be added 
to the heart and art of the poet, the learning of the student 
of antiquity. To construct is one thing, to reconstruct 
with never a model is another and far harder undertak- 
ing, but it is probable that no man ever lived who could 
so well bring to the work the varied qualities which it re- 
quired. 

Macaulay was by very nature a poet of the ballad school. 
His was the heart to thrill at the story of great deeds, and 
his the speech to clothe them in raiment worthy of their 
glory. It is all there : spirit, fire, the rapid swing of the 
narrative that carries you along upon its tide until you 
seem of a verity borne away upon the torrent of the charge, 
until your ears ring with the notes of the trumpet, the 
shouts and groans, the terrible clash of arms. No one w r ith 
the least poetic feeling can read " Horatius " and " The 
Battle of Lake Kegillus " without knowing all this. The 
images, the sentiments, never seem to stay for a moment 
the onrush of the battle. Is not this more than art ? Is it 
not the true resonance of a mind to which art is nature ? 
Thus only does talent stand aside, and genius spring, like 
Pallas, full-armed from the head of Zeus. 

In all these poems there is hardly what might be called 
a digression, and perhaps the most notable instances — 
Horatius' comment upon the perfect death, and the sup- 
posed author's lament for the good old times — seem so 
suited to the places they fill that they come to us quite 
naturally, even while we press on with " sword lifted up 
to slay." In " Virginius " the story is less martial, and in 



editor's introduction. 13 

" The Prophecy of Capys " there is little narrative of any 
kind, but the swing is the same in both, and the perfect 
fitness and, at the same time, subordination of the ornament 
to the matter are marvelously preserved. 

The other qualification which Macaulay brought to his task, 
one which this particular task needed in the highest de- 
gree, was a general and special erudition such as the world 
has seldom seen : — a mind that had delved deeply in the 
literature of all peoples and times, and a memory that never 
let go a thought or fact once grasped. Choosing to speak 
in the characters of ancient poets, as he tells in his preface, 
he of all writers was best able to become their very avatars. 
A sound judgment, however, held him from striving for too 
much. What research could hope to revive the outward 
form of a minstrelsy every line of which is lost ? and even 
if we could assume that Macaulay's acute classical instinct 
might have led him, unguided, to the truth in this respect, 
surely the song would not have told us of to-day what in 
spirit it now tells. Under the form and in the measure of 
modern minstrelsy, the thought, the feeling of the ancient 
minstrel is brought closer and more powerfully to our minds, 
together with all those subtle qualities that we describe by 
the term " local color." 

Realizing then, that the form of the verse was but as a 
means to an end, Macaulay chose a medium that would 
best interpret its message to his audience. Therefore the 
lays are not couched in any attempted simulation of the 
rough blank verse of a time as crude as it was poetic, any 
more than they are written in the language spoken upon the 
Palatine or among the Alban Hills. Music, a comparatively 



14 editor's introduction. 

new art, has brought rhyme and lighter measure as aids to 
feeling and comprehension, and this he utilized to the full. 
In form, as in language, the lays are in the best English ; in 
mind and soul and spirit they are early Eoman : a marvel of 
revivified antiquity. 

In the notes to the poems, I have endeavored to cover 
every point needed for a full comprehension of allusions to 
a time and place and civilization so foreign to our own; 
and, that the spirit in which the author approached his 
task might be fully understood, I have retained his own 
preface and his several introductions to the poems. 

DUEFIELD OSBORNE. 



AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 



That what is called the history of the Kings and early 
Consuls of Kome is to a great extent fabulous, few scholars 
have, since the time of Beaufort, ventured to deny. It is 
certain that, more than three hundred and sixty years after 
the date ordinarily assigned for the foundation of the city, 
the public records were, with scarcely an exception, de- 
stroyed by the Gauls. It is certain that the oldest annals 
of the commonwealth were compiled more than a century 
and a half after this destruction of the records. It is 
certain, therefore, that the great Latin writers of the 
Augustan age did not possess those materials, without 
which a trustworthy account of the infancy of the republic 
could not possibly be framed. Those writers own, indeed, 
that the chronicles to which they ha.d access were filled 
with battles that were never fought, and Consuls that were 
never inaugurated ; and we have abundant proof that, in 
these chronicles, events of the greatest importance, such 
as the issue of the war with Porsena, and the issue of the 
war with Brennus, were grossly misrepresented. Under 
these circumstances a wise man will look with great sus- 
picion on the legend which has come down to us. He will 
perhaps be inclined to regard the princes who are said to 
have founded the civil and religious institutions of Koine, 

15 



16 author's preface. 

the son of Mars, and the husband of Egeria, as mere mytho- 
logical personages, of the same class with Perseus and Ixion. 
As he draws nearer and nearer to the confines of authentic 
history, he will become less and less hard of belief. He 
will admit that the most important parts of the narrative 
have some foundation in truth. But he will distrust almost 
all the details, not only because they seldom rest on any 
solid evidence, but also because he will constantly detect 
in them, even when they are within the limits of physical 
possibility, that peculiar character, more easily understood 
than defined, which distinguishes the creations of the im- 
agination from the realities of the world in which we live. 
The early history of Eome is indeed far more poetical 
than anything else in Latin literature. The loves of the 
Vestal and the God of War, the cradle laid among the reeds 
of Tiber, the fig-tree, the she-wolf, the shepherd's cabin, 
the recognition, the fratricide, the rape of the Sabines, the 
death of Tarpeia, the fall of Hostus Hostilius, the struggle 
of Mettus Curtius through the marsh, the women rushing 
with torn raiment and dishevelled hair between their 
fathers and their husbands, the nightly meetings of Numa 
and the Nymph by the well in the sacred grove, the fight 
of the three Eomans and the three Albans, the purchase 
of the Sybylline books, the crime of Tullia, the simulated 
madness of Brutus, the ambiguous reply of the Delphian 
oracle to the Tarquins, the wrongs of Lucretia, the heroic 
actions of Horatius Codes, of Scsevola, and of Cloelia, the 
battle of Begillus won by the aid of Castor and Pollux, 
the defence of Cremera, the touching story of Coriolanus, 
the still more touching story of Virginia, the wild legend 



author's preface. 17 

about the draining of the Alban lake, the combat between 
Valerius Corvus and the gigantic Gaul, are among the 
many instances which will at once suggest themselves to 
every reader. 

In the narrative of Livy, who was a man of fine imagina- 
tion, these stories retain much of their genuine character. 
Nor could even the tasteless Dionysius distort and muti- 
late them into mere prose. The poetry shines, in spite 
of him, through the dreary pedantry of his eleven books. 
It is discernible in the most tedious and in the most super- 
ficial modern works on the early times of Borne. It en- 
livens the dulness of the Universal History, and gives a 
charm to the most meagre abridgments of Goldsmith. 

Even in the age of Plutarch there were discerning men 
who rejected the popular account of the foundation of 
Borne, because that account appeared to them to have the 
air, not of a history, but of a romance or a drama. Plu- 
tarch, who was displeased at their incredulity, had nothing 
better to say in reply to their arguments than that chance 
sometimes turns poet, and produces trains of events not 
to be distinguished from the most elaborate plots which 
are constructed by art. # But though the existence of a 

* Tttotttov fjiev eviois earl to dpa/JLCLTiKdv kclI ir\a<rfjLCiT tides ' ov del-Be 
aTViGTelv, T7]v rvxyv bpwvras, o'lcov Troirj/jLaruv 87)/jLiovpy6s eo~ri. — Plut. 
Rom. viii. This remarkable passage has been more grossly misinterpreted 
than any other in the Greek language, where the sense was so obvious. 
The Latin version of Cruserius, the French version of Amyot, the old 
English version by several hands, and the later English version by Lang- 
horne, are all equally destitute of every trace of the meaning of the origi- 
nal. None of the translators saw even that 7roirjfxa is a poem. They all 
render it an event. 



18 author's preface. 

poetical element in the early history of the Great City was 
detected so many years ago, the first critic who distinctly 
saw from what source that poetical element had been de- 
rived was James Perizonius, one of the most acute and 
learned antiquaries of the seventeenth century. His theory, 
which, in his own days, attracted little or no notice, was 
revived in the present generation by ISTiebuhr, a man who 
would have been the first writer of his time, if his talent 
for communicating truths had born any proportion to his 
talent for investigating them. That theory has been 
adopted by several eminent scholars of our own country, 
particularly by the Bishop of St. David's, by Professor 
Maiden, and by the lamented Arnold. It appears to be 
now generally received by men conversant with classical 
antiquity ; and indeed it rests on such strong proofs, both 
internal and external, that it will not be easily subverted. 
A popular exposition of this theor}^, and of the evidence 
by which it is supported, may not be without interest 
even for readers who are unacquainted with the ancient 
languages. 

The Latin literature which has come down to us is of 
later date than the commencement of the Second Punic 
War, and consists almost exclusively of works fashioned 
on Greek models. The Latin metres, heroic, elegiac, lyric, 
and dramatic, are of Greek origin. The best Latin epic 
poetry is the feeble echo of the Iliad and Odyssey. The 
best Latin eclogues are imitations of Theocritus. The 
plan of the most finished didactic poem in the Latin 
tongue was taken from Hesiod. The Latin tragedies 
are bad copies of the masterpieces of Sophocles and 



author's preface. 19 

Euripides. The Latin comedies are free translations from 
Demophilus, Menander, and Apollodorus. The Latin phi- 
losophy was borrowed, without alteration, from the Portico 
and the Academy ; and the great Latin orators constantly 
proposed to themselves as patterns the speeches of Demos- 
thenes and Lysias. 

But there was an earlier Latin literature, a literature 
truly Latin, which has wholly perished, which had, indeed, 
almost wholly perished long before those whom we are in 
the habit of regarding as the greatest Latin writers were 
born. That literature abounded with metrical romances, 
such as are found in every country where there is much 
curiosity and intelligence, but little reading and writing. 
All human beings, not utterly savage, long for some infor- 
mation about past times, and are delighted by narratives 
which present pictures to the eye of the mind. But it is 
only in very enlightened communities that books are readily 
accessible. Metrical composition, therefore, which, in a 
highly civilised nation, is a mere luxury, is, in nations im- 
perfectly civilised, almost a necessary of life, and is valued 
less on account of the pleasure which it gives to the ear, 
than on account of the help which it gives to the memory. 
A man who can invent or embellish an interesting story, 
and put it into a form which others may easily retain in 
their recollection, will always be highly esteemed by a peo- 
ple eager for amusement and information, but destitute of 
libraries. Such is the origin of ballad-poetry, a species of 
composition which scarcely ever fails to spring up and 
flourish in every society, at a certain point in the progress 
towards refinement. Tacitus informs us that sonsrs were 



20 author's preface. 

the only memorials of the past which the ancient Germans 
possessed. We learn from Lucan and from Ammianus 
Marcellinus that the brave actions of the ancient Gauls 
were commemorated in the verses of Bards. During many 
ages and through many revolutions, minstrelsy retained its 
influence over both the Teutonic and the Celtic race. The 
vengeance exacted by the spouse of Attila for the murder 
of Siegfried was celebrated in rhymes, of which Germany 
is still justly proud. The exploits of Athelstane were com- 
memorated by the Anglo-Saxons, and those of Canute by 
the Danes, in rude poems, of which a few fragments have 
come down to us. The chants of the Welsh harpers pre- 
served, through ages of darkness, a faint and doubtful mem- 
ory of Arthur. In the Highlands of Scotland may still be 
gleaned some relics of the old songs about Cuthullin and 
Fingal. The long struggle of the Servians against the Otto- 
man power was recorded in lays full of martial spirit. We 
learn from Herrera that, when a Peruvian Inca died, men 
of skill were appointed to celebrate him in verses, which 
all the people learned by heart, and sang in public on days 
of festival. The feats of Kurroglou, the great freebooter 
of Turkistan, recounted in ballads composed by himself, 
are known in every village of Northern Persia. Captain 
Eeechey heard the bards of the Sandwich Islands recite 
the heroic achievements of Kamehameha, the most illus- 
trious of their kings. Mungo Park found in the heart of 
Africa a class of singing-men, the only annalists of their 
rude tribes, and heard them tell the story of the victory 
which Darnel, the negro prince of the Jaloffs, won over Ab- 
dulkader, the Mussulman tyrant of Foota Torra. This spe- 



author's preface. 21 

cies of poetry attained a high degree of excellence among 
the Castilians, before they began to copy Tuscan patterns. 
It attained a still higher degree of excellence among the 
English and the Lowland Scotch, during the fourteenth, 
fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries. But it reached its full 
perfection in ancient Greece ; for there can be no doubt that 
the great Homeric poems are generically ballads, though 
widely distinguished from all other ballads, and indeed 
from almost all other human compositions, by transcendent 
sublimity and beauty. 

As it is agreeable to general experience that, at a cer- 
tain stage in the progress of society, ballad-poetry should 
nourish, so is it also agreeable to general experience that, 
at a subsequent stage in the progress of society, ballad- 
poetry should be undervalued and neglected. Knowledge 
advances : manners change : great foreign models of com- 
position are studied and imitated. The phraseology of the 
old minstrels becomes obsolete. Their versification, which, 
having received its laws only from the ear, abounds in 
irregularities, seems licentious and uncouth. Their sim- 
plicity appears beggarly when compared with the quaint 
forms and gaudy colouring of such artists as Cowley and 
Gongora. The ancient lays, unjustly despised by the 
learned and polite, linger for a time in the memory of the 
vulgar, and are at length too often irretrievably lost. We 
cannot wonder that the ballads of Rome should have alto- 
gether disappeared, when we remember how very narrowly, 
in spite of the invention of printing, those of our own 
country and those of Spain escaped the same fate. There 
is indeed little doubt that oblivion covers many English 



22 author's preface. 

songs equal to any that were published by Bishop Percy, 
and many Spanish songs as good as the best of those which 
have been so happily translated by Mr. Lockhart. Eighty 
years ago England possessed only one tattered copy of 
Childe "Waters and Sir Cauline, and Spain only one tattered 
copy of the noble poern of the Cid. The snuff of a candle, 
or a mischievous dog, might in a moment have deprived 
the world for ever of any of those fine compositions. Sir 
Walter Scott, who united to the fire of a great poet the minute- 
curiosity and patient diligence of a great antiquary, was 
but just in time to save the precious relics of the Minstrelsy 
of the Border. In Germany, the lay of the Nibelungs had 
been long utterly forgotten, when, in the eighteenth cen- 
tury, it was, for the first time, printed from a manuscript 
in the old library of a noble family. In truth, the only 
people who, through their whole passage from simplicity to 
the highest civilisation, never for a moment ceased to love 
and admire their old ballads, were the Greeks. 

That the early Romans should have had ballad-poetry, 
and that this poetry should have perished, is therefore not 
strange. It would, on the contrary, have been strange if 
these things had not come to pass ; and we should be justi- 
fied in pronouncing them highly probable, even if we had 
no direct evidence on the subject. But we have direct 
evidence of unquestionable authority. 

Ennius, who flourished in the time of the Second Punic 
War, was regarded in the Augustan age as the father of 
Latin poetry. He was, in truth, the father of the second 
school of Latin poetry, the only school of which the works 
have descended to us. But from Ennius himself we learn 



author's preface. 23 

that there were poets who stood to him in the same 
relation in which the author of the romance of Count 
Alarcos stood to Garcilaso, or the author of the 'Lytell 
Geste of Eobyn Hode ' to Lord Surrey. Ennius speaks of 
verses which the Fauns and the bards were wont to chant 
in the old time, when none had yet studied the graces of 
speech, when none had yet climbed the peaks sacred to the 
Goddesses of Grecian song. 'Where/ Cicero mournfully 
asks, i are those old verses now ? ' * 

Contemporary with Ennius was Quintus Fabius Pictor, 
the earliest of the Roman annalists. His account of the 
infancy and youth of Romulus and Remus has been 
preserved by Dionysius, and contains a very remarkable 
reference to the ancient Latin poetry. Fabius says that, 
in his time, his countrymen were still in the habit of 
singing ballads about the Twins. 'Even in the hut of 
Faustulus/ — so these old lays appear to have run, — 'the 



* " Quid ? Nostri veteres versus ubi sunt ? 

' Quos oliin Fauui varesque canebant 

Cuhi neque Musarom scopulos quisquani superarat, 
Xec dicti studiosus erat.' " Brutus, xviii. 

The Muses, it should be observed, are Greek divinities. The Italian God- 
desses of verse were the Caruoenae. At a later period, the appellations 
were used indiscriminately ; but in the age of Ennius there was probably 
a distinction. In the epitaph of Naevius, who was the representative of 
the old Italian school of poetry, the Canicenoe, not the Muses, are repre- 
sented as grieving for the loss of their votary. The " Musarura scopuli" 
are evidently the peaks of Parnassus. 

Scaliger. in a note on Varro (De Lingua Latino., lib. vi.), suggests, 
with great ingenuity, that the Fauns, who were represented by the super- 
stition of later ages as a race of monsters, half gods and half brutes, may 
really have been a class of men who exercised in Latium. at a very remote 
period, the same functions which belonged to the Magians in Persia and to 
the bards in Gaul. 



21 author's preface. 

children of Khea and Mars were, in port and in spirit, 
not like unto swineherds, or cowherds, but such that men 
might well guess them to be of the blood of kings and 
Gods.* 

* Ot de av8p(*)6evT€s yivovTcu, Kara re a^iojcnp fJLopcprjs /cat (ppovrj/uLaros 
6ynov, ov <rvo(pop(3o?s /cat (3ovko\ols eot/cdres, dXX' otovs civ tls a^ubveie 
roi)s €K PaaCKeiov re (ptivras yevovs, /cat dirb daifxbvLov airopas yeveadai 
vofjufr/jievovs, cos kv rots irarpiois v/ivols virb 'Pw/xatW ert /cat vvv aderat. 
— Dion. Hal. i. 79. This passage has sometimes been cited as if 
Dionysius had been speaking in his own person, and had, Greek as he 
was, been so industrious or so fortunate as to discover some valuable 
remains of that early Latin poetry which the greatest Latin writers of 
his age regretted as hopelessly lost. Such a supposition is highly im- 
probable ; and indeed it seems clear from the context that Dionysius, as 
Reiske and other editors evidently thought, was merely quoting from 
Fabius Pictor. The whole passage has the air of an extract from an 
ancient chronicle, and is introduced by the words, KotVros fxev <£d/3tos, 
6 Ilt/cTwp \ey6fievos, rrjde ypd<peL. 

Another argument may be urged which seems to deserve considera- 
tion. The author of the passage in question mentions a thatched hut 
which, in his time, stood between the summit of Mount Palatine and the 
Circus. This hut, he says, was built by Romulus, and was constantly 
kept in repair at the public charge, but never in any respect embellished. 
Now, in the age of Dionysius there certainly was at Rome a thatched 
hut, said to have been that of Romulus. But this hut, as we learn from 
Vitruvius, stood, not near the Circus, but in the Capitol. (Vit. ii. 1.) If, 
therefore, we understand Dionysius to speak in his own person, we can 
reconcile his statement with that of Vitruvius only by supposing that 
there were at Rome, in the Augustan age» two thatched huts, both 
believed to have been built by Romulus, and both carefully repaired and 
held in high honour. The objections to such a supposition seem to be 
strong. Neither Dionysius nor Vitruvius speaks of more than one such 
hut. Dio Cassius informs us that twice, during the long administration 
of Augustus, the hut of Romulus caught fire (xlviii. 43, liv. 29). Had 
there been two such huts, would he not have told us of which he spoke? 
An English historian would hardly give an account of a fire at Queen's 
College without saying whether it was at Queen's College, Oxford, or 
at Queen's College, Cambridge. Marcus Seneca, Macrobius, and Conon, 
a Greek writer from whom Photius has made large extracts, mention 



author's preface. 25 

Cato the Censor, who also lived in the days of the 
Second Punic War, mentioned this lost literature in his 
lost work on the antiquities of his country. Many ages, 
he said, before his time, there were ballads in praise of 
illustrious men ; and these ballads it was the fashion for 
the guests at banquets to sing in turn while the piper 
played. i Would,' exclaims Cicero, 'that we still had the 
old ballads of which Cato speaks ! ' # 

Valerius Maximus gives us exactly similar information, 

only one but of Romulus, that in the Capitol. {M. Seneca, Contr. 
i. 6; Macrobius, Sat. i. 15; Photius, Bibl. 186.) Ovid, Livy, Petronius, 
Valerius Maximus, Lucius Seneca, and St. Jerome mention only one 
hut of Romulus, without specifying the site. {Ovid, Fasti, iii. 183; 
Liv. v. 53; Petronius, Fragm. ; Veil, Max. iv. 4; L. Seneca, Consolatio 
ad Helviam ; D. Hleron. ad Paulinianum de Didymo.) 

The whole difficulty is removed if we suppose that Dionysius was 
merely quoting Fabius Pictor. Nothing is more probable than that the 
cabin, which in the time of Fabius stood near the Circus, might, long 
before the age of Augustus, have been transported to the Capitol, as 
the place fittest, by reason both of its safety and of its sanctity, to contain 
so precious a relic. 

The language of Plutarch confirms this hypothesis. He describes, 
with great precision, the spot where Romulus dwelt, on the slope of 
Mount Palatine leading to the Circus ; but he says not a word implying 
that the dwelling was still to be seen there. Indeed, his expressions 
imply that it was no longer there. The evidence of Solinus is still more 
to the point. He, like Plutarch, describes the spot where Romulus 
had resided, and says expressly that the hut had been there, but that 
in his time it was there no longer. The site, it is certain, was well 
remembered ; and probably retained its old name, as Charing Cross 
and the Hay market have done. This is probably the explanation of the 
words, * casa Romuli,' in Victor's description of the Tenth Region of 
Rome, under Valentinian. 

* Cicero refers twice to this important passage in Cato's Antiquities : 
— " Gravissimus auctor in Originibus dixit Cato, morum apud majores 
hunc epularum fuisse, ut deinceps, qui accubareut, canerent ad tibiam 
clarorum virorum laudes atque virtutes. Ex quo perspicuum est, et 



26 author's preface. 

without mentioning his authority, and observes that the 
ancient Roman ballads were probably of more benefit to the 
young than all the lectures of the Athenian schools, and that 
to the influence of the national poetry were to be ascribed 
the virtues of such men as Camillus and Fabricius.* 

Varro, whose authority on all questions connected with 
the antiquities of his country is entitled to the greatest 
respect, tells us that at banquets it was once the fashion 
for boys to sing, sometimes with and sometimes without 
instrumental music, ancient ballads in praise of men of 
former times. These young performers, he observes, 
were of unblemished character, a circumstance which he 
probably mentioned because, among the Greeks, and 
indeed in his time among the Romans also, the morals of 
singing-boys were in no high repute, f 

The testimony of Horace, though given incidentally, 
confirms the statements of Cato, Valerius Maximus, and 
Varro. The poet predicts that, under the peaceful ad- 
ministration of Augustus, the Romans will, over their full 
goblets, sing to the pipe, after the fashion of their fathers, 



cantus turn fuisse rescriptos vocum sonis, et carmina." — Tusc. 
iv. 2. Again: " Utinam exstarent ilia carmina, quse, multus sseculis 
ante suarn setatem, in epulis esse cantitata a singulis convivis de clarorum 
virorum laudibus, in Originibus scriptum reliquit Cato." — Brutus, xix. 

* " Majores natu in conviviis ad tibias egregia superiorum opera car- 
mine comprehensa pangebant, quo ad ea imitanda juventutem alacriorem 
redderent. . . . Quas Atkenas, quam scholam, quae alienigena studia 
huic domestical discipline prsetulerim? Inde oriebantur Camilli, Scipi- 
ones, Fabricii, Marcelli, Fabii." — Val. Max. ii. 1. 

f " In conviviis pueri modesti ut cantarent carmina antiqua, in quibus 
laudes erant majorum, et assa voce, et cum tibicine." — Nonius, Assa 
voce pro sola. 



author's preface. 27 

the deeds of brave captains, and the ancient legends 
touching the origin of the city.* 

The proposition, then, that Borne had ballad poetry is 
not merely in itself highly probable, but is fully proved 
by direct evidence of the greatest weight. 

This proposition being established, it becomes easy 
to understand why the early history of the city is un- 
like almost everything else in Latin literature, native 
where almost everything else is borrowed, imaginative 
where almost everything else is prosaic. We can scarcely 
hesitate to pronounce that the magnificent, pathetic, and 
truly national legends, which present so striking a contrast 
to all that surrounds them, are broken and defaced frag- 
ments of that early poetry which, even in the age of Cato 
the Censor, had become antiquated, and of which Tully 
had never heard a line. 

That this poetry should have been suffered to perish will 
not appear strange when we consider how complete was the 
triumph of the Greek genius over the public mind of Italy. 
It is probable that, at an earlier period, Homer and Herodo- 
tus furnished some hints to the Latin minstrels : t but it 
was not till after the war with Pyrrhus that the poetry of 

* " Nosque et profestis lucibus et sacris, 
Inter jocosi munera Liberi, 
Cum prole matronisque nostris, 
Rite Deos prius apprecati, 
Virtute functos, more patrum, duces, 
Lydis remixto carmine tibiis, 
Trojamque, et Anchisen, et almae 
Progeniem Veneris canemus." 

— Carm. iv. 15. 
t See the Preface to the Lay of the Battle of Regillus. 



28 author's preface. 

Some began to put off its old Ausonian character. The 
transformation was soon consummated. The conquered, 
says Horace, led captive the conquerors. It was precisely 
at the time at which the Roman people rose to unrivalled 
political ascendancy that they stooped to pass under the 
intellectual yoke. It was precisely at the time at which 
the sceptre departed from Greece that the empire of her 
language and of her arts became universal and despotic. 
The revolution indeed was not effected without a struggle. 
Nsevius seems to have been the last of the ancient line of 
poets. Ennius was the founder of a new dynasty. Naevius 
celebrated the First Punic War in Saturnian verse, the old 
national verse of Italy.* Ennius sang the Second Punic 

* Cicero speaks highly in more than one place of this poem of Nsevius : 
Ennius sneered at it, and stole from it. 

As to the Saturnian measure, see Hermann's Elementa Doctrinse 
Metricse, iii. 9. 

The Saturnian line, according to the grammarians, consisted of two 
parts. The first was a catalectic dimeter iambic ; the second was com- 
posed of three trochees. But the licence taken by the early Latin poets 
seems to have been almost boundless. The most perfect Saturnian line 
which has been preserved was the work, not of a professional artist, but 
of an amateur : 

" Dabunt malum Metelli Nsevio poetae." 

There has been much difference of opinion among learned men respect- 
ing the history of this measure. That it is the same with a Greek meas- 
ure used by Archilochus is indisputable. (Bentley, Phalaris, xi.) But 
in spite of the authority of Terentianus Maurus, and of the still higher 
authority of Bentley, we may venture to doubt whether the coincidence 
was not fortuitous. We constantly find the same rude and simple num- 
bers in different countries, under circumstances which make it impossible 
to suspect that there has been imitation on either side. Bishop Heber 
heard the children of a village in Bengal singing " Radha, Radha," to the 
tune of " My boy Billy." Neither the Castilian nor the German minstrels 
of the middle ages owed anything to Paros or to ancient Rome. Yet botl} 



author's preface. 29 

War in numbers borrowed from the Iliad. The elder poet, 
in the epitaph which he wrote for himself, and which is a 
fine specimen of the early Eoman diction and versification, 

the poem of the Cid and the poem of the Nibelungs contain many Satur- 
nian verses ; as — 

" Estas nuevas a mio Cid eran venidas." 
" A. mi lo dicens ; a ti dan las orejades." 

" Man mohte michel wunder von Sifride sagen." 
" Wa ich den Kiinic vinde daz sol man mir sagen." 

Indeed there cannot be a more perfect Saturnian line than one which is 
sung in every English nursery — 

" The queen was in her parlour eating bread and honey ; " 

yet the author of this line, we may be assured, borrowed nothing from 
either Naevius or Archilochus. 

On the other hand, it is by no means improbable that, two or three 
hundred years before the time of Ennius, some Latin minstrel may have 
visited Sybaris or Crotona, may have heard some verses of Archilochus 
sung, may have been pleased with the metre, and may have introduced 
it at Rome. Thus much is certain, that the Saturnian measure, if not a 
native of Italy, was at least so early and so completely naturalised there 
that its foreign origin was forgotten. 

Bentley says indeed that the Saturnian measure was first brought from 
Greece into Italy by Naevius. But this is merely obiter dictum, to use 
a phrase common in our courts of law, and would not have been deliber- 
ately maintained by that incomparable critic, whose memory is held in 
reverence by all lovers of learning. The arguments which might be 
brought against Bentley's assertion — for it is mere assertion, supported 
by no evidence — are innumerable. A few will suffice. 

(1) Bentley's assertion is opposed to the testimony of Ennius. Ennius 
sneered at Naevius for writing on the First Punic War in verses such as 
the old Italian bards used before Greek literature had been studied. Now 
the poem of Naevius was in Saturnian verse. Is it possible that Ennius 
could have used such expressions if the Saturnian verse had been just 
imported from Greece for the first time? 

(2) Bentley's assertion is opposed to the testimony of Horace. " When 
Greece," says Horace, ''introduced her arts into our uncivilised country, 
those rugged Saturnian numbers passed away.'' Would Horace have said 



30 author's preface. 

plaintively boasted that the Latin language had died with 
him. # Thus what to Horace appeared to be the first faint 
dawn of Boman literature, appeared to ISTaevius to be its 
hopeless setting. In truth, one literature was setting, and 
another dawning. 

The victory of the foreign taste was decisive : and indeed 
we can hardly blame the Eomans for turning away with 
contempt from the rude lays which had delighted their 
fathers, and giving their whole admiration to the immortal 
productions of Greece. The national romances, neglected 
by the great and the refined whose education had been fin- 
ished at Khodes or Athens, continued, it may be supposed, 
during some generations, to delight the vulgar. "While 
Virgil, in hexameters of exquisite modulation, described the 
sports of rustics, those rustics were still singing their wild 

this if the Satumian numbers had been imported from Greece just before 
the hexameter ? 

(3) Bentley's assertion is opposed to the testimony of Festus and of 
Aurelius Victor, both of whom positively say that the most ancient pro- 
phecies attributed to the Fauns were in Saturnian verse. 

(4) Bentley's assertion is opposed to the testimony of Terentianus 
Maurus, to whom he has himself appealed. Terentianus Maurus does 
indeed say that the Saturnian measure, though believed by the Romans 
from a very early period (" credidit vetustas ") to be of Italian invention, 
was really borrowed from the Greeks. But Terentianus Maurus does not 
say that it was first borrowed by Naevius. Nay, the expressions used by 
Terentianus Maurus clearly imply the contrary : for how could the Romans 
have believed, from a very early period, that this measure was the indige- 
nous production of Latium, if it was really brought over from Greece in 
an age of intelligence and liberal curiosity, in the age which gave birth to 
Ennius, Plautus, Cato the Censor, and other distinguished writers? If 
Bentley's assertion were correct, there could have been no more doubt at 
Rome about the Greek origin of the Saturnian measure than about the 
Greek origin of hexameters or Sapphics. 

* Aulus Gellius, Nodes Atticse, i. 24. 



author's preface. 31 

Saturnian ballads.* It is not improbable that, at the time 
when Cicero lamented the irreparable loss of the poems 
mentioned by Cato, a search among the nooks of the Apen- 
nines, as active as the search which Sir Walter Scott made 
among the descendants of the mosstroopers of Liddesdale, 
might have brought to light many fine remains of ancient 
minstrelsy. Xo such search was made. The Latin ballads 
perished forever. Yet discerning critics have thought that 
they could still perceive in the early history of Rome 
numerous fragments of this lost poetry, as the traveller on 
classic ground sometimes finds, built into the heavy wall of 
a fort or convent, a pillar rich with acanthus leaves, or a 
frieze where the Amazons and Bacchanals seem to live. 
The theatres and temples of the Greek and the Roman 
were degraded into the quarries of the Turk and the Goth. 
Even so did the ancient Saturnian poetry become the 
quarry in which a crowd of orators and annalists found the 
materials for their prose. 

It is not difficult to trace the process by which the old 
songs were transmuted into the form which they now 
wear. Funeral panegyric and chronicle appear to have 
been the intermediate links which connected the lost bal- 
lads with the histories now extant. From a very early 
period it was the usage that an oration should be pro- 
nounced over the remains of a noble Roman. The orator, 
as we learn from Polybius, was expected, on such an 
occasion, to recapitulate all the services which the an- 
cestors of the deceased had, from the earliest time, ren- 
dered to the commonwealth. There can be little doubt 
*See Servius, in Georg. ii. 385. 



32 AUTHOR S PREFACE. 

that the speaker on whom this duty was imposed would 
make use of all the stories suited to his purpose which 
were to be found in the popular lays. There can be as 
little doubt that the family of an eminent man would 
preserve a copy of the speech which had been pronounced 
over his corpse. The compilers of the early chronicles would 
have recourse to these speeches ; and the great historians of 
a later period would have recourse to the chronicles. 

It may be worth while to select a particular story, and 
to trace its probable progress through these stages. The 
description of the migration of the Fabian house to 
Cremera is one of the finest of the many fine passages 
which lie thick in the earlier books of Livy. The Con- 
sul, clad in his military garb, stands in the vestibule of 
his house, marshalling his clan, three hundred and six 
fighting men, all of the same proud patrician blood, all 
worthy to be attended by the fasces and to command 
the legions. A sad and anxious retinue of friends accom- 
panies the adventurers through the streets ; but the voice 
of lamentation is drowned by the shouts of admiring 
thousands. As the procession passes the Capitol, prayers 
and vows are poured forth, but in vain. The devoted 
band, leaving Janus on the right, marches to its doom 
through the Gate of Evil Luck. After achieving high 
deeds of valour against overwhelming numbers, all perish 
save one child, the stock from which the great Fabian 
race was destined again to spring for the safety and 
glory of the commonwealth. That this fine romance, 
the details of which are so full of poetical truth, and 
so utterly destitute of all show of historical truth, came 



AUTHOB 8 PREFA( 

ually from some lay which had ofl i t li 

I applause at banqu in the hi 

\ is it difficult to imagine a i i which 

the trans iken pi 

The celebrated Quintus Fal who di 

about twenty years before the Firsl Punic War, 
e than forty y fore Enniua 

have been ii with extraordinary pomp. In the 

eulogy pronounced over his all the 

of h .re doul 

ated. If there were then extanl - which 

vivid and I d of an event, 

and the most glorious in the I bian 

:ig could b» ral than 

songs th< 
in order to ad< A ; 

aid perhaps be 

aid vin< - 3. 1 >u1 

in the arehi the Fabian 

nob! - Pictor would be well acquainted with 

a document so intere> . ami 

would insert large exti ra it in 

- the oldest to which 
Li\ ;. 

bold st. 

le nan- they w< 

ich them with a deli' and 

raid make them immortal. 
. it this might ha] 
doul py like thia happened in 



34 author's preface. 

several countries, and, among others, in our own. Per- 
haps the theory of Perizonius cannot be better illustrated 
than by showing that what he supposes to have taken 
place in ancient times has, beyond all doubt, taken place 
in modern times. 

"History," says Hume with the utmost gravity, "has 
preserved some instances of Edgar's amours, from which, 
as from a specimen, we may form a conjecture of the 
rest." He then tells very agreeably the stories of Elfleda 
and Elfrida, two stories which have a most suspicious 
air of romance, and which, indeed, greatly resemble in 
their general character some of the legends of early 
Rome. He cites, as his authority for these two tales, 
the chronicle of William of Malmesbury, who lived in 
the time of King Stephen. The great majority of readers 
suppose that the device by which Elfrida was substi- 
tuted for her young mistress, the artifice by which Athel- 
wold obtained the hand of Elfrida, the detection of that 
artifice, the hunting party, and the vengeance of the 
amorous king, are things about which there is no more 
doubt than about the execution of Anne Boleyn or the 
slitting of Sir John Coventry's nose. But when we turn 
to William of Malmesbury, we find that Hume, in his 
eagerness to relate these pleasant fables, has overlooked 
one very important circumstance. William does indeed 
tell both the stories ; but he gives us distinct notice that 
he does not warrant their truth, and that they rest on 
no better authority than that of ballads.* 

* " Infamias quas post dicam magis resperserunt cantilena?." Edgar 
appears to have been most mercilessly treated in the Anglo-Saxon ballads. 



author's preface. 35 

Such is the way in which those two well-known tales 
have been handed down. They originally appeared in a 
poetical form. They found their way from ballads into 
an old chronicle. The ballads perished ; the chronicle 
remained. A great historian, some centuries after the 
ballads had been altogether forgotten, consulted the chron- 
icle. He was struck by the lively colouring of these 
ancient fictions ; he transferred them to his pages ; and 
thus we find inserted, as unquestionable facts, in a narra- 
tive which is likely to last as long as the English tongue, 
the inventions of some minstrel whose works were prob- 
ably never committed to writing, whose name is buried 
in oblivion, and whose dialect has become obsolete. It 
must, then, be admitted to be possible, or rather highly 
probable, that the stories of Eomulus and Kemus, and of 
the Horatii and Curiatii, may have had a similar origin. 

Castilian literature will furnish us with another parallel 
case. Mariana, the classical historian of Spain, tells the 
story of the ill-starred marriage which the King Don 
Alonso brought about between the heirs of Carrion and 
the two daughters of the Cid. The Cid bestowed a 
princely clower on his sons-in-law. But the young men 
were base and proud, cowardly and cruel. They were 
tried in danger and found wanting. They fled before 
the Moors, and once, when a lion broke out of his den, 
they ran and crouched in an unseemly hiding-place. 
They knew that they were despised, and took counsel 
how they might be avenged. They parted from their 

He was the favourite of the monks j and the monks and the minstrels 
were at deadly feud. 



36 author's preface. 

father-in-law with many signs of love, and set forth on 
a journey with Dona Elvira and Dona Sol. In a soli- 
tary place the bridegrooms seized their brides, stripped 
them, sconrged them, and departed, leaving them for 
dead. But one of the house of Bivar, suspecting foul 
play, had followed the travellers in disguise. The ladies 
were brought back safe to the house of their father. Com- 
plaint was made to the king. It was adjudged by the 
Cortes that the dower given by the Cid should be re- 
turned, and that the heirs of Carrion together with one of 
their kindred should do battle against three knights of the 
party of the Cid. The guilty youths would have declined 
the combat; but all their shifts were vain. They were 
vanquished in the lists, and for ever disgraced, while their 
injured wives were sought in marriage by great princes.* 

Some Spanish writers have laboured to show, by an 
examination of dates and circumstances, that this story is 
untrue. Such confutation was surely not needed ; for the 
narrative is on the face of it a romance. How it found 
its way into Mariana's history is quite clear. He acknowl- 
edges his obligations to the ancient chronicles; and had 
doubtless before him the " Cronica del famoso Cavallero Cid 
Buy Diez Campeador," which had been printed as early 
as the year 1552. He little suspected that all the most 
striking passages in this chronicle were copied from a poem 
of the twelfth century, a poem of which the language and 
versification had long been obsolete, but which glowed with 
no common portion of the fire of the Iliad. Yet such was 
the fact. More than a century and a half after the death 

* Mariana, lib. x. cap. 4. 



author's preface. 37 

of Mariana, this venerable ballad, of which one imperfect 
copy on parchment, four hundred years old, had been pre- 
served at Bivar, was for the first time printed. Then it 
was found that every interesting circumstance of the story 
of the heirs of Carrion was derived by the eloquent Jesuit 
from a song of which he had never heard, and which was 
composed by a minstrel whose very name had long been 
forgotten.* 

Such, or nearly such, appears to have been the process 
by which, the lost ballad-poetry of Rome was transformed 
into history. To reverse that process, to transform some 
portions of early Eoman history back into the poetry out 
of which they were made, is the object of this work. 

In the following poems the author speaks, not in his 
own person, but in the persons of ancient minstrels who 
know only what a Roman citizen, born three or four 
hundred years before the Christian era, ma}' be supposed 
to have known, and who are in nowise above the passions 
and prejudices of their age and nation. To these imagi- 
nary poets must be ascribed some blunders which are so 
obvious that it is unnecessary to point them out. The 
real blunder would have been to represent these old 
poets as deeply versed in general history, and studious of 
chronological accuracy. To them must also be attributed 
the illiberal sneers at the Greeks, the furious party-spirit, 
the contempt for the arts of peace, the love of war for 
its own sake, the ungenerous exultation over the van- 

*See the account which Sanchez gives of the Bivar manuscript in the 
first volume of the Coleccion de Poesias Castollanas anteriores al Siglo 
XV. Part of the story of the lords of Carrion, in the poem of the Cid, has 
been translated by Mr. Frere in a manner above all praise. 



38 author's preface. 

quished, which the reader will sometimes observe. To 
portray a Roman of the age of Camillus or Curius as 
superior to national antipathies, as mourning over the 
devastation and slaughter by which empire and triumphs 
were to be won, as looking on human suffering with the 
sympathy of Howard, or as treating conquered enemies 
with the delicacy of the Black Prince, would be to vio- 
late all dramatic propriety. The old Romans had some 
great virtues, fortitude, temperance, veracity, spirit to 
resist oppression, respect for legitimate authority, fidelity 
in the observing of contracts, disinterestedness, ardent 
patriotism ; but Christian charity and chivalrous generosity 
were alike unknown to them. 

It would have been obviously improper to mimic the 
manner of any particular age or country. Something has 
been borrowed, however, from our own old ballads, and 
more from Sir Walter Scott, the great restorer of our 
ballad-poetry. To the Iliad still greater obligations are 
due ; and those obligations have been contracted with 
the less hesitation, because there is reason to believe that 
some of the old Latin minstrels really had recourse to 
that inexhaustible store of poetical images. 

It would have been easy to swell this little volume to 
a very considerable bulk, by appending notes filled with 
Quotations; but to a learned reader such notes are not 
necessary ; for an unlearned reader they would have 
little interest; and the judgment passed both by the 
learned and by the unlearned on a work of the imagina- 
tion will always depend much more on the general char- 
acter and spirit of such a work than on minute details. 



LAYS OF AXCIEXT ROME. 



o»;o 



HORATIUS. 

There can be little doubt that among those parts of early 
Roman history which had a poetical origin was the legend 
of Horatius Codes. We have several versions of the story, 
and these versions differ from each other in points of no 
small importance. Polybius, there is reason to believe, 
heard the tale recited over the remains of some Consul or 
Praetor descended from the old Horatian patricians ; for 
he introduces it as a specimen of the narratives with which 
the Romans were in the habit of embellishing their funeral 
oratory. It is remarkable that, according to him, Horatius 
defended the bridge alone, and perished in the waters. Ac- 
cording to the chronicles which Livy and Dionysius fol- 
lowed, Horatius had two companions, swam safe ashore, 
and was loaded with honours and rewards. 

These discrepancies are easily explained. Our own liter- 
ature, indeed, will furnish an exact parallel to what may 
have taken place at Rome. It is highly probable that the 
memory of the war of Porsena was preserved by composi- 
tions much resembling the two ballads which stand first in 
the Belies of Ancient English Poetry. In both those ballads 
the English, commanded by the Percy, fight with the Scots. 
commanded by the Douglas. In one of the ballads the 
Douglas is killed by a nameless English archer, and the 
Percy by a Scottish spearman : in the other, the Percy 

39 



40 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

slays the Douglas in single combat, and is himself made 
prisoner. In the former, Sir Hugh Montgomery is shot 
through the heart by a Northumbrian bowman: in the 
latter he is taken and exchanged for the Percy. Yet both 
the ballads relate to the same event, and that an event 
which probably took place within the memory of persons 
who were alive when both the ballads were made. One of 
the minstrels says: 

14 Old men that knowen the grounde well yenoughe 
Call it the battell of Otterburn : 
At Otterburn began this spurne 
Upon a monnyn day. 
Ther was the clougghte Doglas slean : 
The Perse never went away." 

The other poet sums up the event in the following lines : 

" Thys fraye bygan at Otterborne 
Bytwene the nyghte and the day : 
Ther the Dowglas lost hys lyfe, 
And the Percy was lede away." 

It is by no means unlikely that there were two old Roman 
lays about the defence of the bridge ; and that, while the 
story which Livy has transmitted to us was preferred by 
the multitude, the other, which ascribed the whole glory 
to Horatius alone, may have been the favourite with the 
Horatian house. 

The following ballad is supposed to have been made 
about a hundred and twenty years after the war which it 
celebrates, and just before the taking of Rome by the Gauls. 
The author seems to have been an honest citizen, proud 
of the military glory of his country, sick of the disputes of 
factions, and much given to pining after good old times 
which had never really existed. The allusion, however, 
to the partial manner in which the public lands were 



HOKATIUS. 41 

allotted could proceed only from a plebeian ; and the allu- 
sion to the fraudulent sale of spoils marks the date of the 
poem, and shows that the poet shared in the general dis- 
content with which the proceedings of Camillus, after the 
taking of Yeii, were regarded. 

The penultimate syllable of the name Porsena has been 
shortened in spite of the authority of Xiebuhr, who pro- 
nounces, without assigning any ground for his opinion that 
Martial was guilty of a decided blunder in the line, 

" Hanc spectare manum Porsena non potuit." 

It is not easy to understand how any modern scholar, 
whatever his attainments may be, — and those of Niebuhr 
were undoubtedly immense, — can venture to pronounce 
that Martial did not know the quantity of a word which 
he must have uttered and heard uttered a hundred times 
before he left school. Niebuhr seems also to have forgotten 
that Martial has fellow-culprits to keep him in countenance. 
Horace has committed the same decided blunder ; for he 
gives us, as a pure iambic line, 

" Minacis aut Etrusca Porsena} manus." 

Silius Italicus has repeatedly offended in the same way, as 
when he says, 

" Cernitur effugiens ardentem Porsena dextram : " 

and again, 

Clusinum vulgus, cum, Porsena magne, jubebas." 

A modern writer may be content to err in such company. 

Xiebuhr's supposition that each of the three defenders 
of the bridge was the representative of one of the three 
patrician tribes is both ingenious and probable, and has 
been adopted in the following poem. 



HORATIUS. 

A LAY MADE ABOUT THE TEAR OF THE CITY CCCLX. 1 



I. 

Lars Porsexa 2 of Clusium 3 

By the Nine Gods 4 he swore 
That the great house of Tarquin 6 

Should suffer wrong no more. 
By the Nine Gods he swore it, 5 

And named a trysting day, 
And bade his messengers ride forth, 
East and west and south and north, 

To summon his array. 

ii. 

East and w r est and south and north 10 

The messengers ride fast, 
And tower and town and cottage 

Have heard the trumpet's blast. 
Shame on the false Etruscan 

Who lingers in his home, 15 

When Porsena of Clusium 

Is on the march for Home. 

in. 

The horsemen and the footmen 

Are pouring in amain 
From many a stately market-place ; 20 

From many a fruitful plain ; 
42 



HORATIUS. 43 

From many a lonely hamlet, 

Which, hid by beech and pine, 
Like an eagle's nest, hangs on the crest 

Of purple Apennine ; 25 

IV. 

From lordly Yolaterrae, 6 

Where scowls the far-famed hold 
Piled by the hands of giants 

For godlike kings of old ; 
From seagirt Populonia, 7 30 

Whose sentinels descry 
Sardinia's snowy mountain-tops 

Fringing the southern sky ; 



From the proud mart of Pisae, 8 

Queen of the western waves, 35 

Where ride Massilia's 9 triremes 

Heavy with fair-haired slaves ; 
From where sweet Clanis 10 wanders 

Through corn and vines and flowers ; 
From where Cortona " lifts to heaven 40 

Her diadem of towers. 

VI. 

Tall are the oaks whose acorns 

Drop in dark Auser's 12 rill ; 
Fat are the stags that champ the boughs 

Of the Ciminian hill 13 ; 45 

Beyond all streams Clitumnus M 

Is to the herdsman dear ; 
Best of all pools the fowler loves 

The great Volsinian mere. 15 



44 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 



VII. 

But now no stroke of woodman 50 

Is heard by Auser's rill ; 
No hunter tracks the stag's green path 

Up the Ciminian hill ; 
Unwatched along Clitumnus 

Grazes the milk-white steer ; 55 

Unharmed the water fowl may dip 

In the Volsinian mere. 

VIII. 

The harvests of Arretium, 16 

This year, old men shall reap, 
This year, young boys in Umbro 17 60 

Shall plunge the struggling sheep; 
And in the vats of Luna, 18 

This year, the must shall foam 
Round the white feet of laughing girls 

Whose sires have marched to Rome. 65 

IX. 

There be thirty chosen prophets, 

The wisest of the land, 
Who always by Lars Porsena 

Both morn and evening stand : 
Evening and morn the Thirty 70 

Have turned the verses o'er, 
Traced from the right on linen white 19 

By mighty seers of yore. 

x. 

And with one voice the Thirty 

Have their glad answer given : 75 

" Go forth, go forth, Lars Porsena ; 

Go forth, beloved of Heaven ; 



HORATIUS. 45 

Go, and return in glory 

To Clusium's royal dome ; 
And hang round Nurscia's ^ altars 80 

The golden shields 21 of Rome." 

XI. 

And now hath every city 

Sent up her tale of men ; 
The foot are fourscore thousand, 

The horse are thousands ten : 85 

Before the gates of Sutrium 22 

Is met the great array. 
A proud man was Lars Porsena 

Upon the try sting day. 

XII. 

For all the Etruscan armies 90 

Were ranged beneath his eye, 
And many a banished Roman, 

And many a stout ally ; 
And with a mighty following 

To join the muster came 95 

The Tusculan Mamilius, 23 

Prince of the Latian name. 

XIII. 

But by the yellow Tiber 24 

Was tumult and affright : 
From all the spacious champaign 25 100 

To Rome men took their flight. 
A mile around the city, 

The throng stopped up the ways ; 
A fearful sight it was to see 

Through two long nights and days. 105 



46 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

XIV. 

For aged folks on crutches, 

And women great with child, 
And mothers sobbing over babes 

That clung to them and smiled. 
And sick men borne in litters 110 

High on the necks of slaves, 
And troops of sun-burned husbandmen 

With reaping-hooks and staves, 

xv. 

And droves of mules and asses 

Laden with skins 26 of wine, 115 

And endless flocks of goats and sheep, 

And endless herds of kine, 
And endless trains of wagons 

That creaked beneath the weight 
Of corn-sacks and of household goods, 120 

Choked every roaring gate. 

XVI. 

Now, from the rock Tarpeian, 27 

Could the wan burghers spy 
The line of blazing villages 

Red in the midnight sky. 125 

The Fathers of the City, 28 

They sat all night and day, 
For every hour some horseman came 

With tidings of dismay. 

XVII. 

To eastward and to westward 130 

Have spread the Tuscan bands ; 

Nor house, nor fence, nor dovecote 
In Crustumerium ^ stands. 



HORATIUS. 47 

Verbenna down to Ostia 30 

Hath wasted all the plain ; 135 

Astur hath stormed Janiculum, 31 

And the stout guards are slain. 

XVIII. 

I wis, in all the Senate, 

There was no heart so bold, 
But sore it ached and fast it beat, no 

When that ill news was told. 
Forthwith up rose the Consul, 32 

Up rose the Fathers all ; 
In haste they girded up their gowns, 

And hied them to the wall. 145 ' 

XIX. 

They held a council standing 

Before the River-Gate ^ ; 
Short time was there, ye well may guess, 

For musing or debate. 
Out spake the Consul roundly : 150 

" The bridge 34 must straight go down ; 
For, since Janiculum is lost, 

Nought else can save the town." 

xx. 

Just then a scout came flying, 

All wild with haste and fear ; 155 

" To arms ! to arms ! Sir Consul : 

Lars Porsena is here." 
On the low hills to westward 

The Consul fixed his eye, 
And saw the swarthy storm of dust 160 

Eise fast along the sky. 



48 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 



XXI. 

And nearer fast and nearer 

Doth the red whirlwind come ; 
And louder still and still more loud, 
From underneath that rolling cloud, 165 

Is heard the trumpet's war-note proud, 

The trampling, and the hum. 
And plainly and more plainly 

Now through the gloom appears, 
Far to left and far to right, 170 

In broken gleams of dark-blue light, 
The long array of helmets bright, 

The long array of spears. 

XXII. 

And plainly and more plainly, 

Above that glimmering line, 175 

Now might ye see the banners 

Of twelve fair cities shine 35 ; 
But the banner of proud Clusium 

Was highest of them all, 
The terror of the Umbrian, 180 

The terror of the Gaul. 

XXIII. 

And plainly and more plainly 

Now might the burghers know, 
By port and vest, by horse and crest, 

Each warlike Lucumo. 36 185 

There Cilnius 37 of Arretium 

On his fleet roan was seen ; 
And Astur of the four-fold shield, 38 
Girt with the brand none else may wield, 



HORATIUS. 49 

Tolumnius with the belt of gold, 190 

And dark Verbenna from the hold 
By reedy Thrasyniene. 39 

XXIV. 

Fast by the royal standard, 

O'erlooking all the war, 
Lars Porsena of Clusium 195 

Sat in his ivory car. 
By the right wheel rode Marnilius, 

Prince of the Latian name; 
And by the left false Sextus, 40 

That wrought the deed of shame. 200 



XXV. 

But when the face of Sextus 

Was seen among the foes, 
A yell that rent the firmament 

From all the town arose. 
On the house-tops was no woman 205 

But spat towards him and hissed, 
No child, but screamed out curses, 

And shook its little fist. 

XXVI. 

But the Consul's brow was sad, 

And the Consul's speech was low, 210 

And darkly looked he at the wall, 

And darkly at the foe. 
" Their van will be upon us 

Before the bridge goes down ; 
And if they once may win the bridge, 215 

What hope to save the town ? " 



50 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 



XXVII. 



Then out spake brave Horatius, 

The Captain of the Gate 41 : 
" To every man upon this earth 

Death eometh soon or late. 220 

And how can man die better 

Than facing fearful odds, 
For the ashes of his fathers. 

And the temples of his Gods, 

XXVIII. 

" And for the tender mother 225 

Who dandled him to rest, 
And for the wife who nurses 

His baby at her breast, 
And for the holy maidens e 

Who feed the eternal flame, 230 

To save them from false Sextus 

That wrought the deed of shame ? 

XXIX. 

" Hevr down the bridge, Sir Consul, 

With all the speed ye may ; 
I, with two more to help me, 235 

Will hold the foe in play. 
In yon strait path 43 a thousand 

May well be stopped by three. 
Xow who will stand on either hand, 

And keep the bridge with me ? " 240 

xxx. 

Then out spake Spurius Lartius ; 

A Kamnian 44 proud was he : 
"Lo, I will stand at thy right hand, 



HORATIUS. 51 

And keep the bridge with thee." 
And out spake strong Herminius ; 245 

Of Titian 45 blood was he : 
" I will abide on thy left side, 

And keep the bridge with thee." 

XXXI. 

" Horatius," quoth the Consul, 

" As thou sayest, so let it be." 250 

And straight against that great array 

Forth went the dauntless Three. 
For Romans in Rome's quarrel 

Spared neither land nor gold, 
Nor son nor wife, nor limb nor life, 255 

In the brave days of old. 

XXXII. 

Then none was for a party ; 

Then all were for the state ; 
Then the great man helped the poor, 

And the poor man loved the great : 260 

Then lands were fairly portioned 4,; ; 

Then spoils were fairly sold : 
The Romans were like brothers 

In the brave days of old. 

XXXIII. 

Now Roman is to Roman 265 

More hateful than a foe, 
And the Tribunes beard the high, 

And the Fathers grind the low. 
As we wax hot in faction, 

In battle we wax cold : 270 

Wherefore men fight not as they fought 

In the brave days of old. 



52 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 



XXXIV. 

Now while the Three were tightening 

Their harness on their backs, 
The Consul was the foremost man 275 

To take in hand an axe : 
And Fathers mixed with Commons 

Seized hatchet, bar, and crow, 
And smote upon the planks above, 

And loosed the props below. 280 

XXXV. 

Meanwhile the Tuscan army, 

Eight glorious to behold, 
Came flashing back the noonday light, 
Bank behind rank, like surges bright 

Of a broad sea of gold. 285 

Four hundred trumpets sounded 

A peal of warlike glee, 
As that great host, with measured tread, 
And spears advanced, and ensigns spread, 
Soiled slowly towards the bridge's head, 290 

"Where stood the dauntless Three. 

XXXVI. 

The Three stood calm and silent, 

And looked upon the foes, 
And a great shout of laughter 

From all the vanguard rose : 295 

And forth three chiefs came spurring 

Before that deep array ; 
To earth they sprang, their swords they drew, 
And lifted high their shields, and flew 

To win the narrow way : 300 



HORATIUS. 53 



XXXVII. 

Aunus from green Tifernum, 47 

Lord of the Hill of Vines ; 
And Seius, whose eight hundred slaves 

Sicken in Ilva's 48 mines ; 
And Picus, long to Clusium 305 

Vassal in peace and war, 
Who led to fight his Umbrian powers 
Prom that grey crag where, girt with towers, 
The fortress of Nequinum 49 lowers 

O'er the pale waves of Nar. 310 

XXXVIII. 

Stout Lartius hurled down Aunus 

Into the stream beneath : 
Herminius struck at Seius, 

And clove him to the teeth : 
At Picus brave Horatius 315 

Darted one fiery thrust ; 
And the proud Umbrian's gilded arms 

Clashed in the bloody dust. 

XXXIX. 

Then Ocnus of Falerii ^ 

Rushed on the Roman Three ; 320 

And Lausulus of Urgo, 51 

The rover of the sea; 
And Aruns of Volsinium, 52 

Who slew the great wild boar, 
The great wild boar that had his den 325 

Amidst the reeds of Cosa's 53 fen, 
And wasted fields, and slaughtered men. 

Alono- Albinia's 54 shore. 



54 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 



XL. 

Herminius smote down Aruns : 

Lartius laid Ocnus low : 330 

Right to the heart of Lausulus 

Horatius sent a blow. 
" Lie there," he cried, " fell pirate ! 

No more, aghast and pale, 
From Ostia's walls the crowd shall mark 335 

The track of thy destroying bark. 
No more Campania's hinds shall fly 
To woods and caverns when they spy 

Thy thrice accursed sail." 

XLI. 

But now no sound of laughter 340 

Was heard among the foes. 
A wild and wrathful clamour 

From all the vanguard rose. 
Six spears' lengths from the entrance 

Halted that deep array, 345 

But for a space no man came forth 

To win the narrow way. 

XLII. 

But hark ! the cry is Astur : 

And lo ! the ranks divide ; 
And the great Lord of Luna 350 

Comes with his stately stride. 
Upon his ample shoulders 

Clangs loud the fourfold shield, 
And in his hand he shakes the brand 

Which none but he can wield. 355 



HORATIUS. 55 



XLTII. 

He smiled on those bold Romans 

A smile serene and high ; 
He eyed the flinching Tuscans, 

And scorn was in his eye. 
Quoth he, " The she-wolfs litter 55 360 

Stand savagely at bay : 
But will ye dare to follow, 

If Astur clears the way ?" 



XLIV. 

Then, whirling up his broadsword 

With both hands to the height, 365 

He rushed against Horatius, 

And smote with all his might. 
With shield and blade Horatius 

Eight deftly turned the blow. 
The blow, though turned, came yet too nigh ; 370 
It missed his helm, but gashed his thigh : 
The Tuscans raised a joyful cry 

To see the red blood flow. 



XLV. 

He reeled, and on Herminius 

He leaned one breathing-space ; 375 

Then, like a wild cat mad with wounds, 

Sprang right at Astur's face ; 
Through teeth, and skull, and helmet 

So fierce a thrust he sped, 
The good sword stood a hand-breadth out 380 

Behind the Tuscan's head. 



56 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

XLYI. 

And the great Lord of Luna 

Fell at that deadly stroke, 
As falls on Mount Alvernus 56 

A thunder-smitten oak. 385 

Far o'er the crashing forest 

The giant arms lie spread ; 
And the pale augurs, muttering low, 

Gaze on the blasted head. 57 

XL VII. 

On Astur's throat Horatius 390 

Eight firmly pressed his heel, 
And thrice and four times tugged amain, 

Ere he wrenched out the steel. 
" And see/' he cried, " the welcome, 

Fair guests, that waits you here ! 395 

What noble Lucumo comes next 

To taste our Eoman cheer ? " 

XLVIII. 

But at his haughty challenge 

A sullen murmur ran, 
Mingled of wrath, and shame, and dread, 400 

Along that glittering van. 
There lacked not men of prowess, 

Xor men of lordly race ; 
For all Etruria's noblest 

Were round the fatal place. 405 

XLIX. 

But all Etruria's noblest 
Felt their hearts sink to see 



HOEATIUS. 57 

On the earth the bloody corpses, 

In the path the dauntless Three : 
And, from the ghastly entrance 410 

Where those bold Eomans stood, 
All shrank, like boys who unaware, 
Ranging the woods to start a hare, 
Come to the mouth of the dark lair 
Where, growling low, a fierce old bear 415 

Lies amidst bones and blood. 

L. 

Was none who would be foremost 

To lead such dire attack : 
But those behind cried " Forward ! " 

And those before cried " Back ! " 420 

And backward now and forward 

Wavers the deep array ; 
And on the tossing sea of steel, 

To and fro the standards reel ; 
And the victorious trumpet-peal 425 

Dies fitfully away. 

LI. 

Yet one man for one moment 

Stood out before the crowd ; 
Well known was he to all the Three, 

And they gave him greeting loud, 430 

" Now welcome, welcome, Sextus ! 

Now welcome to thy home ! 
Why dost thou stay, and turn away ? 

Here lies the road to Rome." 

LII. 

Thrice looked he at the city ; 435 

Thrice looked he at the dead ; 



58 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

And thrice came on in fury, 

And thrice turned back in dread : 

And, white with fear and hatred, 

Scowled at the narrow way 440 

Where, wallowing in a pool of blood, 
The bravest Tuscans lay. 

LIII. 

But meanwhile axe and lever 

Have manfully been plied ; 
And now the bridge hangs tottering 445 

Above the boiling tide. 
" Come back, come back, Horatius ! " 

Loud cried the Fathers all. 
" Back, Lartius ! back, Herminius ! 

Back, ere the ruin fall ! " 450 

LIV. 

Back darted Spurius Lartius ; 

Herminius darted back : 
And, as they passed, beneath their feet 

They felt the timbers crack. 
But when they turned their faces, 455 

And on the farther shore 
Saw brave Horatius stand alone, 

They would have crossed once more. 

LV. 

But with a crash like thunder 

Fell every loosened beam, 460 

And, like a dam, the mighty wreck 

Lay right athwart the stream : 
And a long shout of triumph 

Rose from the walls of Rome, 
As to the highest turret-tops 465 

Was splashed the yellow foam. 



HORATIUS. 59 



LVI. 

And, like a horse unbroken 

When first he feels the rein. 
The furious river struggled hard, 

And tossed his tawny mane, 470 

And burst the curb, and bounded, 

Rejoicing to be free, 
And whirling down, in fierce career, 
Battlement, and plank, and pier, 

Rushed headlong to the sea. 475 

LVII. 

Alone stood brave Horatius, 

But constant still in mind ; 
Thrice thirty thousand foes before, 

And the broad flood behind. 
" Down with him ! " cried false Sextus, 480 

With a smile on his pale face. 
"Now yield thee/ 3 cried Lars Porsena, 

" Now yield thee to our grace." 

LVIII. 

Round turned he, as not deigning 

Those craven ranks to see ; 485 

Nought spake he to Lars Porsena, 

To Sextus nought spake he; 
But he saw on Palatini! s ^ 

The white porch of his home ; 
And he spake to the noble river 490 

That rolls by the towers of Rome. 

LTX. 

" Oh, Tiber ! father Tiber 59 ! 
To whom the Romans pray. 



60 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

A Roman's life, a Roman's arms, 

Take thou in charge this day ! " 495 

So he spake, and speaking sheathed 

The good sword by his side, 
And with his harness on his back, 

Plunged headlong in the tide. 

LX. 

No sound of joy or sorrow 500 

Was heard from either bank ; 
But friends and foes in dumb surprise, 
With parted lips and straining eyes, 

Stood gazing where he sank ; 
And when above the surges 505 

They saw his crest appear, 
All Rome sent forth a rapturous cry, 
And even the ranks of Tuscany 

Could scarce forbear to cheer. 

LXI. 

But fiercely ran the current, 510 

Swollen high by months of rain : 
And fast his blood was flowing ; 

And he was sore in pain, 
And heavy with his armour, 

And spent with changing blows : 515 

And oft they thought him sinking, 

But still again he rose. 

LXII. 

Never, I ween, did swimmer, 

In such an evil case, 
Struggle through such a raging flood 520 

Safe .to the landing place : 



HORATIUS. 61 

But his limbs were borne up bravely 

By the brave heart within, 
And our good father Tiber 

Bore bravely up his chin. 525 

LXIII. 

" Curse on him ! " quoth false Sextus ; 

" Will not the villain drown ? 
But for this stay, ere close of day 

We should have sacked the town ! " 
" Heaven help him ! " quoth Lars Porsena, 530 

" And bring him safe to shore ; 
For such a gallant feat of arms 

Was never seen before." 

LXIV. 

And now he feels the bottom ; 

Xow on dry earth he stands ; 535 

Kow round him throng the Fathers 

To press his gory hands ; 
And now, with shouts and clapping, 

And noise of weeping loud, 
He enters through the Kiver-Gate, 60 540 

Borne by the joyous crowd. 

LXV. 

They gave him of the corn-land, 61 

That was of public right, 
As much as two strong oxen 

Could plough from morn till night 62 ; 545 

And they made a molten image, 

And set it up on high, 
And there it stands unto this day 

To witness if I lie. 



62 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 



LXVI. 

It stands in the Comitium, 63 550 

Plain for all folk to see ; 
Horatius in his harness, 

Halting upon one knee : 
And underneath is written, 

In letters all of gold, 555 

How valiantly he kept the bridge 

In the brave days of old. 

LXVII. 

And still his name sounds stirring 

Unto the men of Rome, 
As the trumpet-blast that cries to them 560 

To charge the Volscian 64 home ; 
And wives still pray to Juno m 

For boys with hearts as bold 
As his who kept the bridge so well 

In the brave days of old. 565 

LXVIII. 

And in the nights of winter, 

When the cold north winds blow, 
And the long howling of the wolves 

Is heard amidst the snow ; 
When round the lonely cottage 570 

Roars loud the tempest's din, 
And the good logs of Algidus ^ 

Roar louder yet within ; 

LXIX. 

When the oldest cask is opened, 

And the largest lamp is lit; 575 



HOEATIUS 63 

When the chestnuts glow in the embers, 

And the kid turns on the spit ; 
When young and old in circle 

Around the firebrands close ; 
When the girls are weaving baskets, 580 

And the lads are shaping bows ; 

LXX. 

When the goodman mends his armour, 

And trims his helmet's plume ; 
When the goodwife's shuttle merrily 

Goes flashing through the loom ; 585 

With weeping and with laughter 

Still is the story told, 
How well Horatius kept the bridge 

In the brave clays of old. 



THE BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLUS. 



The following poem is supposed to have been produced 
about ninety years after the lay of Horatius. Some persons 
mentioned in the lay of Horatius make their appearance 
again, and some appellations and epithets used in the lay of 
Horatius have been purposely repeated : for, in an age of 
ballad poetry, it scarcely ever fails to happen, that certain 
phrases come to be appropriated to certain men and things, 
and are regularly applied to those men and things by every 
minstrel. Thus we find, both in the Homeric poems and in 

Hesiod, JSlt) 'Hpa/cA^et'?;, 7r€pLK\vro<; 'A/xc^iyir^ets, StaKTopos 'Apya- 
(frovTrjs, €7TTa7rvAos @t/^, 'EAeV^? eveK rjvKO/uiOLO. Thus, too, in 
our own national songs, Douglas is almost always the 
doughty Douglas: England is merry England: all the gold 
is red ; and all the ladies are gay. 

The principal distinction between the lay of Horatius and 
the lay of the Lake Regillus is that the former is meant to 
be purely Roman, while the latter, though national in its 
general spirit, has a slight tincture of Greek learning and 
of Greek superstition. The story of the Tar quins, as it has 
come down to us, appears to have been compiled from the 
works of several popular poets ; and one, at least, of those 
poets appears to have visited the Greek colonies in Italy, if 
not Greece itself, and to have had some acquaintance with 
the works of Homer and Herodotus. Many of the most 
striking adventures of the house of Tarquin, before Lucretia 
makes her appearance, have a Greek character. The Tar- 
quins themselves are represented as Corinthian nobles of 



66 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

the great house of the Bacchiadse, driven from their country 
by the tyranny of that Cypselus, the tale of whose strange 
escape Herodotus has related with incomparable simplicity 
and liveliness.* Livy and Dionysius tell us that, when Tar- 
quin the Proud was asked what was the best mode of gov- 
erning a conquered city, he replied only by beating down 
with his staff all the tallest poppies in his garden. t This is 
exactly what Herodotus, in the passage to which reference 
has already been made, relates of the counsel given to Peri- 
ander, the son of Cypselus. The stratagem by which the 
town of Gabii is brought under the power of the Tarquins 
is, again, obviously copied from Herodotus. J The embassy 
of the young Tarquins to the oracle at Delphi is just such a 
story as would be tolcl by a poet whose head was full of the 
Greek mythology ; and the ambiguous answer returned by 
Apollo is in the exact style of the prophecies which, accord- 
ing to Herodotus, lured Croesus to destruction. Then the 
character of the narrative changes. Prom the first mention 
of Lucretia to the retreat of Porsena nothing seems to be 
borrowed from foreign sources. The villany of Sextus, the 
suicide of his victim, the revolution, the death of the sons 
of Brutus, the defence of the bridge, Mucins burning his 
hand, Cloelia swimming through Tiber, seem to be all strictly 
Roman. But when we have done with the Tuscan war, and 
enter upon the war with the Latines, we are again struck by 
the Greek air of the story. The Battle of the Lake Begillus 
is in all respects a Homeric battle, except that the comba- 
tants ride astride on their horses, instead of driving chariots. 
The mass of fighting men is hardly mentioned. The lead- 
ers single each other out, and engage hand to hand. The 
great object of the warriors on both sides is, as in the Iliad, 
to obtain possession of the spoils and bodies of the slain ; 

* Herodotus, v. 92. Livy, i. 34. Dionysius, iii. 46. 
f Livy, i. 54. Dionysius, iv. 5Q. 
I Herodotus, iii. 154. Livy, i. 53. 



BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLCS. 67 

and several circumstances are related which forcibly remind 
us of the great slaughter round the corpses of Sarpedon and 
Patroclus. 

But there is one circumstance which deserves especial 
notice. Both the war of Troy and the war of Regillus 
were caused by the licentious passions of young princes, 
who were therefore peculiarly bound not to be sparing 
of their own persons in the day of battle. Xow the con- 
duct of Sextus at Regillus, as described by Livy, so exactly 
resembles that of Paris, as described at the beginning of 
the third book of the Iliad, that it is difficult to believe the 
resemblance accidental. Paris appears before the Trojan 
ranks, defying the bravest Greek to encounter him : 

Tpcocrh fikv irpofxaxi-^v ' A\e%avdpos deoeidrjs, 
, . . ' Apyeicov irpoKaKl^ero irdvras apLdTovs, 
avrifiiov (jLaxe&acrdcu ev alvrj drjLorrJTL. 

Livy introduces Sextus in a similar manner: "Ferocem 
juvenem Tarquinium, ostentantem se in prima exsulum acie." 
Menelaus rushes to meet Paris. A Roman noble, eager for 
vengeance, spurs his horse towards Sextus. Both the guilty 
princes are instantly terror-stricken : 

Tbu 8 cbs o&i> iv6r)(T€v AXe^avdpos Oeoeidrjs 

kv TrpofxdxoKTL (fmvevra, KaTeTrXrjyr] (pL\ov 9jrop ' 

Sl\(/ 5' erdpcov els eQvos ex^i" 6ro K VP dXeelvcjv. 

" Tarquinius," says Livy, " retro in agmen suorum infenso 
cessit hosti." If this be a fortuitous coincidence, it is one 
of the most extraordinary in literature. 

In the following poem, therefore, images and incidents 
have been borrowed, not merely without scruple, but on 
principle, from the incomparable battle-pieces of Homer. 

The popular belief at Borne, from an early period, 
seems to have been that the event of the great day of 
Regillus was decided by supernatural agency. Castor and 
Pollux, it was said, had fought, armed and mounted, at the 



68 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

head of the legions of the commonwealth, and had after- 
wards carried the news of the victory with incredible speed 
to the city. The well in the Forum at which they had 
alighted was pointed out. Near the well rose their ancient 
temple. A great festival was kept to their honour on the 
Ides of Quintilis, supposed to be the anniversary of the 
battle ; and on that day sumptuous sacrifices were offered 
to them at the public charge. One spot on the margin of 
Lake Regillus was regarded during many ages with super- 
stitious awe. A mark, resembling in shape a horse's hoof, 
was discernible in the volcanic rock ; and this mark was 
believed to have been made by one of the celestial chargers. 
How the legend originated cannot now be ascertained: 
but we may easily imagine several ways in which it might 
have originated ; nor is it at all necessary to suppose, with 
Julius Frontinus, that two young men were dressed up by 
the Dictator to personate the sons of Leda. It is prob- 
able that Livy is correct when he says that the Eoman 
general, in the hour of peril, vowed a temple to Castor. If 
so, nothing could be more natural than that the multitude 
should ascribe the victory to the favour of the Twin Gods. 
When such was the prevailing sentiment, any man who 
chose to declare that, in the midst of the confusion and 
slaughter, he had seen two godlike forms on white horses 
scattering the Latines, would find ready credence. We 
know, indeed, that, in modern times, a very similar story 
actually found credence among a people much more civil- 
ised than the Romans of the fifth century before Christ. 
A chaplain of Cortes, writing about thirty years after the 
conquest of Mexico, in an age of printing presses, libraries, 
universities, scholars, logicians, jurists, and statesmen, had 
the face to assert that, in one engagement against the 
Indians, Saint James had appeared on a grey horse at the 
head of the Castilian adventurers. Many of those adven- 
turers were living when this lie was printed. One of them, 



BATTLE OF THE LAKE KEGILLUS. 69 

honest Bernal Diaz, wrote an account of the expedition. 
He had the evidence of his own senses against the legend ; 
but he seems to have distrusted even the evidence of his 
own senses. He says that he was in the battle, and that he 
saw a grey horse with a man on his back, but that the man 
was, to his thinking, Francesco de Morla, and not the ever- 
blessed apostle Saint James. " Nevertheless," Bernal adds, 
" it may be that the person on the grey horse was the glori- 
ous apostle Saint James, and that I, sinner that I am, was 
unworthy to see him." The Romans of the age of Cincin- 
natus were probably quite as credulous as the Spanish sub- 
jects of Charles the Fifth. It is therefore conceivable that 
the appearance of Castor and Pollux may have become an 
article of faith before the generation which had fought at 
Regillus had passed away. Nor could anything be more 
natural than that the poets of the next age should embellish 
this story, and make the celestial horsemen bear the tidings 
of victory to Rome. 

Many years after the temple of the Twin Gods had been 
built in the Forum, an important addition was made to the 
ceremonial by which the state annually testified its gratitude 
for their protection. Quintus Fabins and Publius Deems 
were elected Censors at a momentous crisis. It had become 
absolutely necessary that the classification of the citizens 
should be revised. On that classification depended the dis- 
tribution of political power. Party-spirit ran high; and 
the republic seemed to be in danger of falling under the 
dominion either of a narrow oligarchy or of an ignorant 
and headstrong rabble. Under such circumstances, the 
most illustrious patrician and the most illustrious ple- 
beian of the age were intrusted with the office of arbitrat- 
ing between the angry factions ; and they performed their 
arduous task to the satisfaction of all honest and reasonable 
men. 

One of their reforms was a remodelling of the equestrian 



70 LAYS OF AXCIEXT ROME. 

order ; and, having effected this reform, they determined to 
give to their work a sanction derived from religion. In the 
chivalrous societies of modern times, societies which have 
much more than may at first sight appear in common with 
the equestrian order of Rome, it has been usual to invoke 
the special protection of some Saint, and to observe his day 
with peculiar solemnity. Thus the Companions of the Garter 
wear the image of Saint George depending from their col- 
lars, and meet, on great occasions, in Saint George's Chapel. 
Thus, when Lewis the Fourteenth instituted a new order of 
chivalry for the rewarding of military merit, he commended 
it to the favour of his own glorified ancestor and patron, 
and decreed that all the members of the fraternity should 
meet at the royal palace on the feast of Saint Lewis, should 
attend the king to chapel, should hear mass, and should sub- 
sequently hold their great annual assembly. There is a con- 
siderable resemblance between this rule of the order of Saint 
Lewis and the rule which Fabius and Decius made respect- 
ing the Roman knights. It was ordained that a grand mus- 
ter and inspection of the equestrian body should be part of 
the ceremonial performed, on the anniversary of the battle 
of Eegillus, in honour of Castor and Pollux, the two eques- 
trian Gods. All the knights, clad in purple and crowned 
with olive, were to meet at a temple of Mars in the suburbs. 
Thence they were to ride in state to the Forum, where the 
temple of the Twins stood. This pageant was, during sev- 
eral centuries, considered as one of the most splendid sights 
of Home. In the time of Dionysius the cavalcade some- 
times consisted of five thousand horsemen, all persons of 
fair repute and easy fortune. # 

There can be no doubt that the Censors who instituted 



*See Livy, ix. 46. Val. Max. ii. 2. Aurel. Yict. De Viris Ilhistribus, 
32. Dionysius, vi. 13. Plin. Hist. Nat. xv. 5. See also the singularly 
ingenious chapter in Niebuhr's posthumous volume, Die Censur des Q. 
Fabius und P. Decius. 



BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLUS. 71 

this august ceremony acted in concert with the Pontiffs to 
whom, by the constitution of Eome, the superintendence of 
the public worship belonged; and it is probable that those 
high religious functionaries were, as usual, fortunate enough 
to find in their books or traditions some warrant for the 
innovation. 

The following poem is supposed to have been made for 
this great occasion. Songs, we know, were chanted at the 
religious festivals of Eome from an early period; indeed 
from so early a period, that some of the sacred verses were 
popularly ascribed to Xuma, and were utterly unintelligible 
in the age of Augustus. In the Second Punic War a great 
feast was held in honour of Juno, and a song was sung in 
her praise. This song was extant when Livy wrote ; and, 
though exceedingly rugged and uncouth, seemed to him 
not wholly destitute of merit.* A song, as we learn from 
Horace,! ^vas part of the established ritual at the great 
Secular Jubilee. It is therefore likely that the Censors 
and Pontiffs, when they had resolved to add a grand pro- 
cession of knights to the other solemnities annually per- 
formed on the Ides of Quintilis, would call in the aid of 
a poet. Such a poet would naturally take for his subject 
the battle of Regillus, the appearance of the Twin Gods, 
and the institution of their festival. He would find abun- 
dant materials in the ballads of his predecessors ; and he 
would make free use of the scanty stock of Greek learning 
which he had himself acquired. He would probably intro- 
duce some wise and holy Pontiff enjoining the magnificent 
ceremonial, which, after a long interval, had at length been 
adopted. If the poem succeeded, many persons would com- 
mit it to memory. Parts of it would be sung to the pipe 
at banquets. It would be peculiarly interesting to the great 
Posthumian House, which numbered among its many images 
that of the Dictator Aulus. the hero of Regillus. The orator 
*Livy, xxvii. 37. t Hor, Carmen Seculore. 



72 LAYS OF ANCIEXT ROME. 

who, in the following generation, pronounced the funeral 
panegyric over the remains of Lucius Posthumius Megellus, 
thrice Consul, would borrow largely from the lay ; and thus 
some passages, much disfigured, would probably find their 
way into the chronicles which were afterwards- in the hands 
of Dionysius and Livy. 

Antiquaries differ widely as to the situation of the field 
of battle. The opinion of those who suppose that the 
armies met near Cornuf elle, between Frascati and the Monte 
Porzio, is at least plausible, and has been followed in the 
poem. 

As to the details of the battle, it has not been thought 
desirable to adhere minutely to the accounts which have 
come down to us. Those accounts, indeed, differ widely 
from each other, and, in all probability, differ as widely 
from the ancient poem from which they were originally 
derived. 

It is unnecessary to point out the obvious imitations of 
the Iliad, which have been purposely introduced. 



THE BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLUS. 

A LAY SUNG AT THE FEAST OF CASTOR AND POLLUX, ON THE IDES 
OF QUINTILIS, IN THE YEAR OF THE CITY CCCCLI. 



I. 

Ho, trumpets, sound a war-note ! 

Ho, lictors, 1 clear the way ! 
The Knights 2 will ride, in all their pride, 

Along the streets to-day. 
To-day the doors and windows 5 

Are hung with garlands all, 
From Castor 3 in the Forum, 

To Mars 4 without the wall. 
Each Knight is robed in purple, 5 

With olive each is crowned ; 10 

A gallant war-horse under each 

Paws haughtily the ground. 
While flows the Yellow Biver, 6 

While stands the Sacred Hill/ 
The proud Ides of Quintilis 8 15 

Shall have such honour still. 
Gay are the Martian Kalends 9 : 

December's Nones 10 are gay : 
But the proud Ides, when the squadron rides, 

Shall be Eome's whitest day : 20 

11. 

Unto the Great Twin Brethren n 
We keep this solemn feast. 
73 



74 LAYS OF ANCIENT EOME. 

Swift, swift, the Great Twin Brethren 

Came spurring from the east. 
They came o'er wild Parthenius 12 25 

Tossing in waves of pine, 
O'er Cirrha's 13 dome, o'er Adria's foam, 

O'er purple Apennine, 
From where with flutes 14 and dances 

Their ancient mansion rings, 30 

In lordly Lacedaemon, 

The City of two kings, 15 
To where, by Lake Regillus, 16 

Under the Porcian height, 
All in the lands of Tusculum, 17 35 

Was fought the glorious fight. 



in. 

Now on the place of slaughter 

Are cots and sheepfolds seen, 
And rows of vines, and fields of wheat, 

And apple-orchards green ; 40 

The swine crush the big acorns 

That fall from Corne's 18 oaks. 
Upon the turf by the Pair Fount 

The reaper's pottage smokes. 
The fisher baits his angle ; 45 

The hunter twangs his bow ; 
Little they think on those strong limbs 

That moulder deep below. 
Little they think how sternly 

That day the trumpets pealed ; 50 

How in the slippery swamp of blood 

Warrior and war-horse reeled ; 
How wolves came with fierce gallop, 

And crows on eager wings, 



BATTLE OF THE LAKE KEGILLUS. fb 

To tear the flesli of captains, 55 

And peck the eyes of kings ; 
How thick the dead lay scattered 

Under the Porcian height ; 
How through the gates of Tusculum 

Eaved the wild stream of flight ; 60 

And how the Lake Regillus 

Bubbled with crimson foam, 
What time the Thirty Cities 19 

Came forth to war with Eome. 

IV. 

But, Roman, when thou standest 65 

Upon that holy ground, 
Look thou with heed on the dark rock 

That girds the dark lake round, 
So shalt thou see a hoof -mark 

Stamped deep into the flint : 70 

It was no hoof of mortal steed 

That made so strange a dint: 
There to the Great Twin Brethren 

Vow thou thy vows, and pray 
That they, in tempest and in fight, 75 

Will keep thy head alway. 



Since last the Great Twin Brethren 

Of mortal eyes were seen, 
Have years gone by an hundred 

And fourscore and thirteen. 20 80 

That summer a Yirginius 

W r as Consul first in place 21 ; 
The second was stout Aulus, 

Of the Posthumian race. 



76 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

The Herald of the Latines 85 

From Gabii 22 came in state : 
The Herald of the Latines 

Passed through Eome's Eastern Gate 23 : 
The Herald of the Latines 

Did in our Forum stand ; 90 

And there he did his office, 

A sceptre in his hand. 

VI. 

" Hear, Senators and people 

Of the good town of Rome, 
The Thirty Cities charge you 95 

To bring the Tarquins 24 home : 
And if ye still be stubborn, 

To work the Tarquins wrong, 
The Thirty Cities warn you, 

Look that your w^alls be strong." 100 

VII. 

Then spake the Consul Aulus, 

He spake a bitter jest : 
"Once the jay sent a message 

Unto the eagle's nest : — 
Now yield thou up thine eyrie 105 

Unto the carrion-kite, 
Or come forth valiantly, and face 

The jays in deadly fight. — 
Forth looked in wrath the eagle ; 

And carrion-kite and jay, 110 

Soon as they saw his beak and claw, 

Fled screaming far away." 

VIII. 

The Herald of the Latines 
Hath hied him back in state ; 



BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLUS. 77 

The Fathers of the City 115 

Are met in high debate. 
Then spake the elder Consul, 

An ancient man and wise : 
" Now hearken, Conscript Fathers, 25 

To that which I advise. 120 

In seasons of great peril 

? Tis good that one bear sway ; 
Then choose we a Dictator, 26 

Whom all men shall obey. 
Camerium 27 knows how deeply 125 

The sword of Aulus bites, 
And all our city calls him 

The man of seventy fights. 
Then let him be Dictator 

For six months and no more ; 130 

And have a Master of the Knights, 

And axes twenty-four. 28 



IX. 

So Aulus was Dictator, 

The man of seventy fights ; 
He made iEbutius Elva 135 

His Master of the Knights. 29 
On the third morn thereafter, 

At dawning of the day, 
Did Aulus and JEbutius 

Set forth with their array. 140 

Sempronius Atratinus 

Was left in charge at home 
With boys, and with grey-headed men, 

To keep the walls of Eome. 
Hard by the Lake Regillus 145 

Our camp was pitched at night : 



78 LAYS OF ANCIEKT ROME. 

Eastward a mile the Latines lay. 

Under the Porcian height. 
Far over hill and valley 

Their mighty host was spread ; 150 

And with their thousand watch-fires 

The midnight sky was red. 



Up rose the golden morning 

Over the Porcian height, 
The proud Ides of Quintilis 155 

Marked evermore with white. 
Not without secret trouble 

Our bravest saw the foes ; 
For, girt by threescore thousand spears, 

The thirty standards rose. 160 

Prom every warlike city 

That boasts the Latian name, 
Foredoomed to dogs and vultures, 

That gallant army came ; 
From Setia's 30 purple vineyards, 165 

From Norba's 31 ancient wall, 
From the white streets of Tusculum, 

The proudest town of all ; 
From where the Witch's Fortress 32 

Overhangs the dark-blue seas ; 170 

From the still, glassy lake that sleeps 

Beneath Aricia's trees 33 — 
Those trees in whose dim shadow 

The ghastly priest doth reign, 
The priest who slew the slayer, 175 

And shall himself be slain ; 
From the drear banks of Ufens, 34 

Where flights of marsh-fowl play, 



BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLUS. 79 

And buffaloes lie wallowing 

Through the hot summer's day ; 180 

From the gigantic watch-towers, 

No work of earthly men. 
Whence Cora's 3,5 sentinels o'erlook 

The never-ending fen ; 
From the Laurentian 36 jungle, 185 

The wild hog's reedy home ; 
From the green steeps whence Anio m leaps 

In floods of snow-white foam. 

XI. 

Aricia, Cora, Xorba, 

Velitrse, 38 with the might 190 

Of Setia and of Tusculum, 

Were marshalled on the right : 
The leader was Mamilius, 39 

Prince of the Latian name ; 
Upon his head a helmet 195 

Of red gold shone like flame : 
High on a gallant charger 

Of dark-grey hue he rode ; 
Over his gilded armour 

A vest of purple flowed, 200 

Woven in the land of sunrise 

By Syria's dark-browed daughters, 40 
And by the sails of Carthage 41 brought 

Far o'er the southern waters. 

XII. 

Lavinium 42 and Laurentum 205 

Had on the left their post, 
With all the banners of the marsh, 

And banners of the coast. 



80 LAYS OF ANCIEKT ROME. 

Their leader was false Sextus, 48 

That wrought the deed of shame : 210 

With restless pace and haggard face 

To his last field he came. 
]\Ien said he saw strange visions 

Which none beside might see, 
And that strange sounds were in his ears 215 

Which none might hear but he. 
A woman fair and stately, 

But pale as are the dead, 
Oft through the watches of the night 

Sat spinning by his bed. 220 

And as she plied the distaff, 

In a sweet voice and low, 
She sang of great old houses, 

And fights fought long ago. 
So spun she, and so sang she, 225 

Until the east was grey, 
Then pointed to her bleeding breast, 

And shrieked, and fled away. 



XIII. 

But in the centre thickest 

Were ranged the shields of foes, 230 

And from the centre loudest 

The cry of battle rose. 
There Tiber ** marched and Pedum 45 

Beneath proud Tarquin's rule, 
And Ferentinum ^ of the rock, 235 

And Gabii of the pool. 
There rode the Yolscian succours 47 : 

There, in a dark stern ring, 
The Eoman exiles gathered close 

Around the ancient king. 48 240 



BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLUS. 81 

Though white as Mount Soracte, 49 

When winter nights are long, 
His beard flowed down o'er mail and belt, 

His heart and hand were strong: 
Under his hoary eyebrows 245 

Still flashed forth quenchless rage, 
And, if the lance shook in his gripe, 

'Twas more with hate than age. 
Close at his side was Titus 

On an Apulian steed, 50 250 

Titus, the youngest Tarquin, 

Too ffood for such a breed. 



XIV. 

Now on each side the leaders 

Gave signal for the charge ; 
And on each side the footmen 255 

Strode on with lance and targe ; 
And on each side the horsemen 

Struck their spurs deep in gore ; 
And front to front the armies 

Met with a mighty roar : 260 

And under that great battle 

The earth with blood was red ; 
And, like the Pomptine fog 51 at morn, 

The dust hung overhead ; 
And louder still and louder 265 

Eose from the darkened field 
The braying of the war-horns, 

The clang of sword and shield, 
The rush of squadrons sweeping 

Like whirlwinds o'er the plain, 270 

The shouting of the slayers, 

And screeching of the slain. 



82 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 



XV 

False Sextus rode out foremost : 

His look was high and bold ; 
His corslet was of bison's hide, 275 

Plated with steel and gold. 
As glares the famished eagle 

From the Digentian rock 52 
On a choice lamb that bounds alone 

Before Bandusia's flock, 53 280 

Herminius glared on Sextus, 

And came with eagle speed, 
Herminius on black Auster, 

Brave champion on brave steed ; 
In his right hand the broadsword 285 

That kept the bridge so well, 
And on his helm the crown 54 he won 

When proud Fidenae 55 fell. 
Woe to the maid whose lover 

Shall cross his path to-day ! 290 

False Sextus saw, and trembled, 

And turned, and fled away. 
As turns, as flies, the woodman 

In the Calabrian brake, 
When through the reeds gleams the round eye 295 

Of that fell speckled snake 56 ; 
So turned, so fled, false Sextus, 

And hid him in the rear, 
Behind the dark Lavinian ranks, 

Bristling Avith crest and spear. 3C0 



XVI. 



But far to north iEbutius, 
The Master of the Knights, 



BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLUS. 83 

Gave Tubero of Norba 

To feed the Porcian kites. 
Next under those red horse-hoofs 305 

Flaccus of Setia lay ; 
Better had he been priming 

Among his elms that day. 
Mamilius saw the slaughter, 

And tossed his golden crest, 310 

And towards the Master of the Knights 

Through the thick battle pressed. 
iEbutius smote Mamilius 

So fiercely on the shield 
That the great lord of Tusculum 315 

Well nigh rolled on the field. 
Mamilius smote iEbutius, 

With a good aim and true, 
Just where the neck and shoulder join, 

And pierced him through and through; 320 
And brave iEbutius Elva 

Fell swooning to the ground : 
But a thick wall of bucklers 

Encompassed him around. 
His clients from the battle 325 

Bare him some little space, 
And filled a helm from the dark lake, 

And bathed his brow and face ; 
And when at last he opened 

His swimming eyes to light, 330 

Men say, the earliest word he spake 

Was, " Friends, how goes the fight ? n 

XVII. 

But meanwhile in the centre 

Great deeds of arms were wrought ; 



84 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

There Auhis the Dictator 335 

And there Valerius 57 fought. 
Aulus with his good- broadsword 

A bloody passage cleared 
To where, amidst the thickest foes, 

He saw the long white beard. 340 

Flat lighted that good broadsword 

Upon proud Tarquin's head. 
He dropped the lance : he dropped the reins : 

He fell as fall the dead. 
Down Aulus springs to slay him, 345 

With eyes like coals of fire ; 
But faster Titus hath sprung down, 

And hath bestrode his sire. 
Latian captains, Roman knights, 

Fast down to earth they spring, 350 

And hand to hand they fight on foot 

Around the ancient king. 
First Titus gave tall Cseso 

A death wound in the face ; 
Tall Cseso was the bravest man 355 

Of the brave Fabian race : 
Aulus slew Rex of Gabii, 

The priest of Juno's shrine : 58 
Valerius smote down Julius, 

Of Rome's great Julian line ; 360 

Julius, who left his mansion 

High on the Velian hill, 59 
And through all turns of weal and woe 

Followed proud Tarquin still. 
Now right across proud Tarquin 365 

A corpse was Julius laid ; 
And Titus groaned with rage and grief, 

And at Valerius made. 
Valerius struck at Titus, 

And lopped off half his crest ; 370 



BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLUS. 85 

But Titus stabbed Valerius 

A span deep in the breast. 
Like a mast snapped by the tempest, 

Valerius reeled and fell. 
Ah ! woe is me for the good house 375 

That loves the people well ! 
Then shouted loud the Latines ; 

And with one rush they bore 
The struggling Eomans backward 

Three lances' length and more : 380 

And up they took proud Tarquin, 

And laid him on a shield, 
And four strong yeomen bare him, 

Still senseless, from the field. 

XVIII. 

But fiercer grew the fighting 385 

Around Valerius dead ; 
For Titus dragged him by the foot, 

And Aulus by the head. 
" On, Latines, on ! " quoth Titus, 

" See how the rebels fly ! " 390 

" Romans, stand firm ! " quoth Aulus, 

" And win this fight or die ! 
They must not give Valerius 

To raven and to kite ; 
For aye Valerius loathed the wrong, 395 

And aye upheld the right : 
And for your wives and babies 

In the front rank he fell. 
Now play the men for the good house 

That loves the people well ! " 400 

XIX. 

Then tenfold round the body 
The roar of battle rose, 



86 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

Like the roar of a burning forest, 

When a strong north wind blows. 
Now backward, and now forward, 405 

Eocked furiously the fray, 
Till none could see Valerius, 

And none wist where he lay. 
For shivered arms and ensigns 

Were heaped there in a mound, 410 

And corpses stiff, and dying men 

That writhed and gnawed the ground ; 
And wounded horses kicking, 

And snorting purple foam : 
Eight well did such a couch befit 415 

A Consular of Eonie. 60 

xx. 

But north looked the Dictator ; 

North looked he long and hard ; 
And spake to Caius Cossus, 

The Captain of his Guard : 420 

" Caius, of all the Eomans 

Thou hast the keenest sight ; 
Say, what through yonder storm of dust 

Comes from the Latian right ? " 

XXI. 

Then answered Caius Cossus 425 

" I see an evil sight ; 61 
The banner of proud Tusculum 

Comes from the Latian right : 
I see the plumed horsemen ; 

And far before the rest 430 

I see the dark-grey charger, 

I see the purple vest; 



BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLUS. 87 

I see the golden helmet 

That shines far off like flame ; 
So ever rides Mamilius, 435 

Prince of the Latian name." 



XXII. 

" Now hearken, Cains Cossus : 

Spring on thy horse's back ; 
Ride as the wolves of Apennine 

Were all upon thy track ; 440 

Haste to our southward battle : 

And never draw thy rein 
Until thou find Herminius, 

And bid him come amain." 



XXIII. 

So Aulus spake, and turned him 445 

Again to that fierce strife ; 
And Caius Cossus mounted, 

And rode for death and life. 
Loud clanged beneath his horse-hoofs 

The helmets of the dead, 450 

And many a curdling pool of blood 

Splashed him from heel to head. 
So came he far to southward, 

Where fought the Roman host, 
Against the banners of the marsh 455 

And banners of the coast. 
Like corn before the sickle 

The stout Lavinians fell, 
Beneath the edge of the true sword 

That kept the bridge so well. 460 



88 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 



XXIV. 

" Herminius ! Aulus greets thee ; 

He bids thee come with speed, 
To help our central battle ; 

For sore is there our need. 
There wars the youngest Tarquin, 465 

And there the Crest of Flame, 
The Tusculan Mamilius, 

Prince of the Latian name. 
Valerius hath fallen fighting 

In front of our array : 470 

And Aulus of the seventy fields 

Alone upholds the day." 

XXV. 

Herminius beat his bosom : 

But never a word he spake. 
He clapped his hand on Auster's mane : 475 

He gave the reins a shake, 
Away, away went Auster, 

Like an arrow from the bow : 
Black Auster was the fleetest steed 

From Aufidus 62 to Po. 63 480 

XXVI. 

Eight glad were all the Eomans 

Who, in that hour of dread, 
Against great odds bare up the war 

Around Valerius dead, 
When from the south the cheering 485 

Bose with a mighty swell ; 
" Herminius comes, Herminius, 

Who kept the bridge so well ! " 



BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLUS. 89 



XXVII. 

Mamilius spied Herminius, 

And dashed across the way. 490 

" Herminius ! I have sought thee 

Through many a bloody day. 
One of us two, Herminius, 

Shall never more go home. 
I will lay on for Tusculum, 495 

And lay thou on for Eome ! " 

XXVIII. 

All round them paused the battle, 

While met in mortal fray 
The Roman and the Tusculan, 

The horses black and grey. 500 

Herminius smote Mamilius 

Through breast-plate and through breast ; 
And fast flowed out the purple blood 

Over the purple vest. 
Mamilius smote Herminius 505 

Through head-piece and through head; 
And side by side those chiefs of pride 

Together fell down dead. 
Down fell they dead together 

In a great lake of gore ; 510 

And still stood all who saw them fall 

While men might count a score. 

XXIX. 

Fast, fast, with heels wild spurning, 

The dark-grey charger fled : 
He burst through ranks of fighting men ; 515 

He sprang o'er heaps of dead. 



90 LAYS OF ANCIENT EOME. 

His bridle far out-streaming. 

His flanks all blood and foam, 
He sought the southern mountains, 64 

The mountains of his home. 520 

The pass was steep and rugged, 

The wolves they howled and whined ; 
But he ran like a whirlwind up the pass, 

And he left the wolves behind. 
Through many a startled hamlet 525 

Thundered his flying feet ; 
He rushed through the gate of Tusculum, 

He rushed up the long white street ; 
He rushed by tower and temple, 

And paused not from his race 530 

Till he stood before his master's door 

In the stately market-place. 
And straightway round him gathered 

A pale and trembling crowd, 
And when they knew him, cries of rage 535 

Brake forth, and wailing loud : 
And women rent their tresses 

For their great prince's fall ; 
And old men girt on their old swords, 

And went to man the wall. 540 



XXX. 

But, like a graven image, 

Black Auster kept his place, 
And ever wistfully he looked 

Into his masters face. 
The raven-mane that daily 545 

With pats and fond caresses, 
The young Herminia washed and combed 

And twined in even tresses, 



BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLUS. 91 

And decked with coloured ribands 

From her own gay attire, 550 

Hung sadly o'er her father's corpse 

In carnage and in mire. ■ 
Forth with a shout sprang Titus, 

And seized black Auster's rein. 
Then Aulus sware a fearful oath, 555 

And ran at him amain. 
" The furies ^ of thy brother 

With me and mine abide, 
If one of your accursed house 

Upon black Auster ride ! " 560 

As on an Alpine watch-tower 

From heaven comes down the flame, 
Full on the neck of Titus 

The blade of Aulus came : 
And out the red blood spouted, 565 

In a wide arch and tall, 
As spouts a fountain in the court 

Of some rich Capuan's hall. 66 
The knees of all the Latines 

Were loosened with dismay 570 

When dead, on dead Herminius, 

The bravest Tarquin lay. 

XXXI. 

And Aulus the Dictator 

Stroked Auster's raven mane, 
With heed he looked unto the girths, 575 

With heed unto the rein. 
" Now bear me well, black Auster, 

Into yon thick array ; 
And thou and I will have revenge 

For thy good lord this day." 580 



92 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 



XXXII. 

So spake he; and was buckling 

Tighter black Auster's band, 
When he was aware of a princely pair 

That rode at his right hand. 
So like they were, no mortal 585 

Might one from other know : 
White as snow their armour was : 

Their steeds were white as snow. 
Never on earthly anvil 

Did such rare armour gleam ; 590 

And never did such gallant steeds 

Drink of an earthly stream. 

XXXIII. 

And all who saw them trembled, 

And pale grew every cheek ; 
And Aulus the Dictator 595 

Scarce gathered voice to speak. 
" Say by what name men call you ? 

What city is your home ? 
And wherefore ride ye in such guise 

Before the ranks of Rome ? " 600 

XXXIV. 

" By many names men call us ; 

In many lands we dwell : 
Well Samothracia 67 knows us ; 

Cyrene 68 knows us well. 
Our house in gay Tarentum 69 605 

Is hung each morn with flowers : 
High o'er the masts of Syracuse 70 

Our marble portal towers ; 



BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLUS. 93 

But by the proud Eurotas 71 

Is our dear native home ; 610 

And for the right we come to fight 

Before the ranks of Rome." 

XXXV. 

So answered those strange horsemen, 

And each couched low his spear ; 
And forthwith all the ranks of Rome 615 

Were bold, and of good cheer : 
And on the thirty armies 

Came wonder and affright, 
And Ardea 72 wavered on the left, 

And Cora on the right. 620 

" Rome to the charge ! " cried Aulus ; 

" The foe begins to yield ! 
Charge for the hearth of Vesta ! 73 

Charge for the Golden Shield ! 74 
Let no man stop to plunder, 625 

But slay, and slay, and slay ; 
The Gods who live for ever 

Are on our side to-day." 

xxxvi. 

Then the fierce trumpet-flourish 

From earth to heaven arose, 630 

The kites know well the long stern swell 

That bids the Romans close. 
Then the good sword of Aulus 

Was lifted up to slay : 
Then, like a crag down Apennine, 635 

Rushed Auster through the fray. 
But under those strange horsemen 

Still thicker lay the slain ; 



94 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

And after those strange horses 

Black Auster toiled in vain. 640 

Behind them Eome's long battle 

Came rolling on the foe, 
Ensigns dancing wild above, 

Blades all in line below. 
So comes the Po in flood-time 645 

Upon the Celtic plain 7b : 
So comes the squall, blacker than night, 

Upon the Adrian main. 
Now, by our Sire Quirinus, 76 

It was a goodly sight 650 

To see the thirty standards 

Swept down the tide of flight. 
So flies the spray of Adria 

When the black squall doth blow, 
So corn-sheaves in the flood-time 655 

Spin down the whirling Po. 
False Sextus to the mountains 

Turned first his horse's head ; 
And fast fled Ferentinum, 

And fast Lanuvium 77 fled. 660 

The horsemen of Momentum 78 

Spurred hard out of the fray ; 
The footmen of Velitrse 

Threw shield and spear away. 
And underfoot was trampled, 665 

Amidst the mud and gore, 
The banner of proud Tusculum, 

That never stooped before : 
And down went Flavius Faustus, 

Who led his stately ranks 670 

From where the apple blossoms wave 

On Anio's echoing banks, 
And Tullus of Arpinum, 79 

Chief of the Volscian aids, 



BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLUS. 95 

And Metius with the long fair curls, 675 

The love of Amur's m maids, 
And the white head of Yulso, 

The great Arician seer, 81 
And Xepos and Laurenturn, 

The hunter of the deer ; 680 

And in the back false Sextus 

Felt the good Roman steel, 
And wriggling in the dust he died, 

Like a worm beneath the wheel : 
And fliers and pursuers 685 

Were mingled in a mass ; 
And far away the battle 

Went roaring through the pass. 

XXXVII. 

Sempronius Atratinus 

Sate in the Eastern Gate, 690 

Beside him were three Fathers, 

Each in his chair of state ; 
Fabius, whose nine stout grandsons 

That day were in the field, 
And Manlius, eldest of the Twelve 695 

Who kept the Golden Shield ; 
And Sergius, the High Pontiff, 82 

For wisdom far renowned; 
In all Etruria's colleges ^ 

Was no such Pontiff found. 700 

And all around the portal, 

And high above the wall, 
Stood a great throng of people, 

But sad and silent all ; 
Young lads, and stooping elders 705 

That might not bear the mail. 



96 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROMS. 

Matrons with lips that quivered, 

And maids with faces pale. 
Since the first gleam of daylight, 

Senipronius had not ceased 710 

To listen for the rushing 

Of horse-hoofs from the east. 
The mist of eve was rising, 

The sun was hastening down. 
When he was aware of a princely pair 715 

Fast pricking towards the town. 
So like they were, man never 

Saw twins so like before ; 
Red with gore their armour was, 

Their steeds were red with gore. 720 

XXXVIII. 

" Hail to the great Asylum ! ^ 

Hail to the hill-tops seven ! & 
Hail to the fire that burns for aye. 86 

And the shield that fell from heaven ! 
This day by Lake Regillus, 725 

Under the Porcian height, 
All in the lands of Tusculum 

Was fought a glorious fight, 
To-morrow your Dictator 

Shall bring in triumph home 730 

The spoils of thirty cities 

To deck the shrines of Borne ! " 

XXXIX. 

Then burst from that great concourse 

A shout that shook the towers, 
And some ran north, and some ran south, 735 

Crying, " The day is ours ! " 



BATTLE OB THE LAKE REGILLl S. 97 

But on rode these strange horsemen. 

With slow and lordly pace ; 
And none who saw their bearing 

Durst ask their name or race. 740 

On rode they to the Forum, 

While laurel-boughs and flowers, 
From house-tops and from windows, 

Fell on their crests in showers. 
When they drew nigh to Vesta.- 7 745 

They vaulted down amain. 
And washed their horses in the well 

That springs by Vesta's fane. 
And straight again they mounted, 

And rode to Vesta's door; 750 

Then, like a blast, away they passed, 

And no man saw them more. 



XL. 

And all the people trembled, 

And pale grew every cheek ; 
And Sergius the High Pontiff 755 

Alone found voice to speak : 
u The gods who live for ever 

Have fought for Rome to-day ! 
These be the Great Twin Brethren 

To whom the Dorians pray. 760 

Back comes the Chief in triumph, 

Who, in the hour of fight. 
Hath seen the Great Twin Brethren 

In harness on his right. 88 
Safe comes the ship to haven, 89 765 

Through billows and through gales, 
If once the Great Twin Brethren 

Sit shining on the sails. 



98 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

Wherefore they washed their horses 

In Vesta's holy well, 770 

Wherefore they rode to Vesta's door, 

I know, but may not tell. 
Here, hard by Vesta's Temple, 

Build we a stately dome 
Unto the Great Twin Brethren 775 

Who fought so well for Rome. 
And when the months returning 

Bring back this day of fight, 
The proud Ides of Quintilis, 

Marked evermore with white, 780 

Unto the Great Twin Brethren 

Let all the people throng, 
With chaplets and with offerings, 

With music and with song ; 
And let the doors and windows 785 

Be hung with garlands all, 
And let the Knights be summoned 

To Mars without the wall : 
Thence let them ride in purple 

With joyous trumpet-sound, 790 

Each mounted on his war-horse, 

And each with olive crowned ; 
And pass in solemn order 

Before the sacred dome, 
Where dwell the Great Twin Brethren 795 

Who fought so well for Rome ! " 



VIRGINIA. 



A collection" consisting exclusively of war-songs would 
give an imperfect, or rather an erroneous, notion of the 
spirit of the old Latin ballads. The Patricians, during 
more than a century after the expulsion of the Kings, held 
all the high military commands. A Plebeian, even though, 
like Lucius Siccius, he were distinguished by his valour and 
knowledge of war, could serve only in subordinate posts. 
A minstrel, therefore, who wished to celebrate the early 
triumphs of his country, could hardly take any but Patri- 
cians for his heroes. The warriors who are mentioned in 
the two preceding lays, Horatius, Lartius, Herminius, Aulus 
Posthumius, iEbutius Elva, Sempronius Atratinus, Valerius 
Poplicola, were all members of the dominant order; and a 
poet who was singing their praises, whatever his own politi- 
cal opinions might be, would naturally abstain from insult- 
ing the class to which they belonged, and from reflecting 
on the system which had placed such men at the head of 
the legions of the Commonwealth. 

But there was a class of compositions in which the great 
families were by no means so courteously treated. No parts 
of early Roman history are richer with poetical colouring 
than those which relate to the long contest between the 
privileged houses and the commonalty. The population of 
Rome was, from a very early period, divided into hereditary 
castes, which, indeed, readily united to repel foreign ene- 
mies, but which regarded each other, during many years. 

99 

LofC. 



100 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

with bitter animosity. Between those castes there was a 
barrier hardly less strong than that which, at Venice, 
parted the members of the Great Council from their coun- 
trymen. In some respects, indeed, the line which separated 
an Icilius or a Duilius from a Posthumius or a Fabius was 
even more deeply marked than that which separated the 
rower of a gondola from a Contarini or a Morosini. At 
A T enice the distinction was merely civil. At Eome it was 
both civil and religious. Among the grievances under which 
the Plebeians suffered, three were felt as peculiarly severe. 
They were excluded from the highest magistracies, they 
were excluded from all share in the public lands ; and they 
were ground down to the dust by partial and barbarous 
legislation touching pecuniary contracts. The ruling class 
in Koine was a monied class ; and it made and administered 
the laws with a view solely to its own interest. Thus the 
relation between lender and borrower was mixed up with 
the relation between sovereign and subject. The great men 
held a large portion of the community in dependence by 
means of advances at enormous usury. The law of debt, 
framed by creditors, and for the protection of creditors, 
was the most horrible that has ever been known among 
men. The liberty, and even the life, of the insolvent were 
at the mercy of the Patrician money-lenders. Children 
often became slaves in consequence of the misfortunes of 
their parents. The debtor was imprisoned, not in a public 
gaol under the care of impartial public functionaries, but in 
a private workhouse belonging to the creditor. Frightful 
stories were told respecting these dungeons. It was said 
that torture and brutal violation were common; that tight 
stocks, heavy chains, scanty measures of food, were used to 
punish wretches guilty of nothing but poverty; and that 
brave soldiers, whose breasts were covered with honourable 
scars, were often marked still more deeply on the back by 
the scourges of high-born usurers. 



VIRGINIA. 101 

The Plebeians were, however, not wholly without con- 
stitutional rights. From an early period they had been 
admitted to some share of political power. They were 
enrolled each in his century, and were allowed a share, 
considerable though not proportioned to their numerical 
strength, in the disposal of those high dignities from which 
they were themselves excluded. Thus their position bore 
some resemblance to that of the Irish Catholics during the 
interval between the year 1792 and the year 1829. The 
Plebeians had also the privilege of annually appointing 
officers, named Tribunes, who had no active share in the 
government of the Commonwealth, but who, by degrees, 
acquired a power formidable even to the ablest and most 
resolute Consuls and Dictators. The person of the Tribune 
was inviolable; and though he could directly effect little, 
he could obstruct everything. 

During more than a century after the institution of the 
Tribuneship, the Commons struggled manfully for the re- 
moval of the grievances under which they laboured ; and, 
in spite of many checks and reverses, succeeded in wringing 
concession after concession from the stubborn aristocracy. 
At length, in the year of the city 378, both parties mustered 
their whole strength for their last and most desperate con- 
flict. The popular and active Tribune. Cams Licinius, pro- 
posed the three memorable laws 1 which are called by his 
name, and which were intended to redress the three great 
evils of which the Plebeians complained. He was sup- 
ported, with eminent ability and firmness, by his colleague, 
Lucius Sextius. The struggle appears to have been the 
fiercest that ever in any community terminated without an 
appeal to arms. If such a contest had raged in any Greek 
city, the streets would have run with blood. But, even in 
the paroxysms of faction, the Roman retained his gravity, 
his respect for law, and his tenderness for the lives of his 
fellow-citizens. Year after year Licinius and Sextius were 



102 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

re-elected Tribunes. Year after year, if the narrative which 
has come down to us is to be trusted, they continued to 
exert, to the full extent, their power of stopping the whole 
machine of government. No curule magistrates could be 
chosen ; no military muster could be held. We know too 
little of the state of Borne in those days to be able to con- 
jecture how, during that long anarchy, the peace was kept, 
and ordinary justice administered between man and man. 
The animosity of both parties rose to the greatest height. 
The excitement, we may well suppose, would have been 
peculiarly intense at the annual election of Tribunes. On 
such occasions there can be little doubt that the great 
families did all that could be done, by threats and caresses, 
to break the union of the Plebeians. That union, however, 
proved indissoluble. At length the good cause triumphed. 
The Licinian laws were carried. Lucius Sextius was the 
first Plebeian Consul, Caius Licinius the third. 

The results of this great change were singularly happy 
and glorious. Two centuries of prosperity, harmony, and 
victory followed the reconciliation of the orders. Men who 
remembered Eome engaged in waging petty wars almost 
within sight of the Capitol lived to see her the mistress of 
Italy. While the disabilities of the Plebeians continued, 
she was scarcely able to maintain her ground against the 
Volscians and Hernicans. When those disabilities were 
removed, she rapidly became more than a match for Car- 
thage and Macedon. 

During the great Licinian contest the Plebeian poets 
were, doubtless, not silent. Even in modern times songs 
have been by no means without influence on public affairs; 
and we may therefore infer that, in a society where print- 
ing was unknown, and where books were rare, a pathetic 
or humorous party-ballad must have produced effects such 
as we can but faintly conceive. It is certain that satirical 
poems were common at Rome from a very early period. 



VIRGINIA. 103 

The rustics, who lived at a distance from the seat of govern- 
ment, and took little part in the strife of factions, gave 
vent to their petty local animosities in coarse Fescennine 
verse. 2 The lampoons of the city were doubtless of a higher 
order ; and -their sting was early felt by the nobility. For 
in the Twelve Tables, long before the time of the Licinian 
laws, a severe punishment was denounced against the 
citizen who should compose or recite verses reflecting on 
another.* Satire is, indeed, the only sort of composition 
in which the Latin poets, whose works have come down to 
us, were not mere imitators of foreign models; and it is 
therefore the only sort of composition in which they have 
never been rivalled. It was not, like their tragedy, their 
comedy, their epic and lyric poetry, a hothouse plant which, 
in return for assiduous and skilful culture, gave only 
scanty and sickly fruits. It was hardy and full of sap; 
and in all the various juices which it yielded might be 
distinguished the flavour of the Ausonian soil. " Satire," 
says Quinctilian, with just pride, "is all our own." Satire 
sprang, in truth, naturally from the constitution of the 
Roman government and from the spirit of the Roman peo- 
ple; and, though at length subjected to metrical rules 
derived from Greece, retained to the last an essentially 
Roman character. Lucilius was the earliest satirist whose 
works were held in esteem under the Caesars. But many 
years before Lucilius was born, Naevius had been flung into 
a dungeon, and guarded there with circumstances of un- 
usual rigour, on account of the bitter lines in which he had 
attacked the great Caecilian family. t The genius and spirit 
of the Roman satirists survived the liberty of their country, 

* Cicero justly infers from this law that there had been early Latin 
poets whose works had been lost before his time. " Quamquam id quidem 
etiam xii tabulae declarant, condi jam turn solitum esse carmen, quod ne 
liceret fieri ad alterius injuriam lege sanxerunt." — Tusc. iv. 2. 

t Plautus, Miles Glonosus. Aulus Gellius, iii. 3. 



104 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

and were not extinguished by the cruel despotism of the 
Julian and Flavian Emperors. The great poet who told 
the story of Domitian's turbot 3 was the legitimate successor 
of those forgotten minstrels whose songs animated the fac- 
tions of the infant Eepublic. 

These minstrels, as Niebuhr has remarked, appear to 
have generally taken the popular side. We can hardly be 
mistaken in supposing that, at the great crisis of the civil 
conflict, they employed themselves in versif} T ing all the 
most powerful and virulent speeches of the Tribunes, and 
in heaping abuse on the leaders of the aristocracy. Every 
personal defect, every domestic scandal, every tradition 
dishonourable to a noble house, would be sought out, 
brought into notice, and exaggerated. The illustrious head 
of the aristocratical party, Marcus Furius Camillus, might 
perhaps be, in some measure, protected by his venerable 
age and by the memory of his great services to the State. 
But Appius Claudius Crassus enjoyed no such immunity. 
He was descended from a long line of ancestors distin- 
guished by their haughty demeanour, and by the inflexi- 
bility with which they had withstood all the demands of 
the Plebeian order. While the political conduct and the 
deportment of the Claudian nobles drew upon them the 
fiercest public hatred, they were accused of wanting, if any 
credit is due to the early history of Rome, a class of quali- 
ties which, in the military commonwealth, is sufficient to 
cover a multitude of offences. The chiefs of the family 
appear to have been eloquent, versed in civil business, and 
learned after the fashion of their age ; but in war they were 
not distinguished by skill or valour. Some of them, as if 
conscious where their weakness lay, had, when filling the 
highest magistracies, taken internal administration as their 
department of public business, and left the military com- 
mand to their colleagues. * One of them had been intrusted 

* In the years of the city 260, .°,04, and 330. 



VIRGINIA. 105 

with an army, and had failed ignominiously.* None of 
them had been honoured with a triumph. Xone of them 
had achieved any martial exploit, such as those by which 
Lucius Quinctius Cineinnatus, Titus Quinctius Capitolinus, 
Aulus Cornelius Cossus, and, above all, the great Camillus, 
had extorted the reluctant esteem of the multitude. Dur- 
ing the Licinian conflict, Appius Claudius Crassus signalised 
himself by the ability and severity with which he harangued 
against the two great agitators. He would naturally, there- 
fore, be the favourite mark of the Plebeian satirists ; nor 
would they have been at a loss to find a point on which he 
was open to attack. 

His grandfather, called, like himself, Appius Claudius, 
had left a name as much detested as that of Sextus Tar- 
quinius. This elder Appius had been Consul more than 
seventy years before the introduction of the Licinian laws. 
By availing himself of a singular crisis in public feeling, 
he had obtained the consent of the Commons to the aboli- 
tion of the Tribuneship, and had been the chief of that 
Council of Ten to which the whole direction of the State 
had been committed. In a few months his administration 
had become universally odious. It had been swept away 
by an irresistible outbreak of popular fury ; and its memory 
was still held in abhorrence by the whole city. The imme- 
diate cause of the downfall of this execrable government 
was said to have been an attempt made by Appius Claudius 
upon the chastity of a beautiful young girl of humble birth. 
The story ran that the Decemvir, unable to succeed by 
bribes and solicitations, resorted to an outrageous act of 
tyranny. A vile dependent of the Claudian house laid 
claim to the damsel as his slave. The cause was brought 
before the tribunal of Appius. The wicked magistrate, in 
defiance of the clearest proofs, gave judgment for the claim- 
ant. But the girl's father, a brave soldier, saved her from 
* In the year of the city 282. 



106 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

servitude and dishonour by stabbing her to the heart in the 
sight of the whole Forurn. That blow was the signal for a 
general explosion. Camp and city rose at once ; the Ten 
were pulled down ; the Tribuneship was re-established ; and 
Appius escaped the hands of the executioner only by a vol- 
untary death. 

It can hardly be doubted that a story so admirably 
adapted to the purposes both of the poet and of the dema- 
gogue would be eagerly seized upon by minstrels burning 
with hatred against the Patrician order, against the Clau- 
dian house, and especially against the grandson and name- 
sake of the infamous Decemvir. 

In order that the reader may judge fairly of these frag- 
ments of the lay of Virginia, he must imagine himself a 
Plebeian who has just voted for the re-election of Sextius and 
Licinius. All the power of the Patricians has been exerted 
to throw out the two great champions of the Commons. 
Every Posthumius, iEmilius, and Cornelius has used his in- 
fluence to the utmost. Debtors have been let out of the 
workhouses on condition of voting against the men of the 
people : clients have been posted to hiss and interrupt the 
favourite candidates : Appius Claudius Crassus has spoken 
with more than his usual eloquence and asperity : all has 
been in vain ; Licinius and Sextius have a fifth time carried 
all the tribes : work is suspended : the booths are closed : 
the Plebeians bear on their shoulders the two champions 
of liberty through the Forum. Just at this moment it is 
announced that a popular poet, a zealous adherent of the 
Tribunes, has made a new song which will cut the Claudian 
nobles to the heart. The crowd gathers round him, and 
calls on him to recite it. He takes his stand on the spot 
where, according to tradition, Virginia, more than seventy 
years ago, was seized by the pandar of Appius, and he 
begins his story. 



VIKGINIA 



FRAGMENTS OF A LAY SUNG IN THE FORUM ON THE DAY WHEREON 
LUCIUS SEXTIUS LATERANUS AND CAIUS LICINIUS CALVUS STOLO 
WERE ELECTED TRIBUNES OF THE COMMONS THE FIFTH TIME, IN 
THE TEAR OF THE CITY CCCLXXXII. 



Ye good men of the Commons, with loving hearts and true, 
Who stand by the bold Tribunes 4 that still have stood by 

you, 

Come, make a circle round me, and mark my tale with care, 
A tale of what Eome once hath borne, of what Home yet 

may bear. 
This is no Grecian fable, of fountains running wine, 5 5 

Of maids with snaky tresses, 6 or sailors turned to swine. 7 
Here, in this very Forum, under theaioonday sun, 
In the sight of all the people, the bloody deed was done. 
Old men still creep among us who saw that fearful day, 
Just seventy years and seven ago, when the wicked Ten 8 

bare sway. 10 

Of all the wicked Ten still the names are held accursed, 
And of all the wicked Ten Appius Claudius was the worst. 
He stalked along the Forum like King Tarquin 9 in his pride : 
Twelve axes 10 waited on him, six marching on a side ; 
The townsmen shrank to right and left, and eyed askance 
with fear 15 

His lowering brow, his curling mouth, which always seemed 
to sneer : 

107 



108 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

That brow of hate, that mouth of scorn, marks all the kin- 
dred still ; 

For never was there Claudius yet but wished the Commons 
ill: 

Nor lacks he fit attendance ; for close behind his heels, 

With outstretched chin and crouching pace, the client n Mar- 
cus steals, 20 

His loins girt up to run with speed, be the errand what it 
may, 

And the smile flickering on his cheek, for aught his lord may 
say. 

Such varlets pimp and jest for hire among the lying Greeks, 

Such varlets still are paid to hoot when brave Licinius 
speaks. 

Where'er ye shed the honey, the buzzing flies will crowd; 25 

Where'er ye fling the carrion, the raven's croak is loud ; 

Where'er down Tiber garbage floats, the greedy pike ye 
see; 

And wheresoe'er such lord is found, such client still will be. 

Just then, as through one cloudless chink in a black, 

stormy sky, 
Shines out the dewy morning-star, a fair young girl came 

by. 30 

With her small tablets 12 in her hand, and her satchel on her 

arm, 
Home she went bounding from the school, nor dreamed of 

shame or harm ; 
And past those dreaded axes she innocently ran, 
With bright, frank brow that had not learned to blush at 

gaze of man ; 
And up the Sacred Street 1S she turned, and, as she danced 

along, 35 

She warbled gaily to herself lines of the good old song, 
How for a sport the princes came spurring from the camp, 



VIRGINIA. 109 

And found Lucrece, 14 combing the fleece, under the midnight 

lamp. 
The maiden sang as sings the lark, when up he darts his 

flight, 
From his nest in the green April corn, to meet the morning 

light ; 40 

And Appius heard her sweet young voice, and saw her sweet 

young face, 
And loved her with the accursed love of his accursed race, 
And all along the Forum, and up the Sacred Street, 
His vulture eye pursued the trip of those small glancing feet. 

Over the Alban mountains 15 the light of morning broke : 45 
From all the roofs of the Seven Hills 16 curled the thin 

wreaths of smoke : 
The city gates were opened ; the Forum all alive 17 
With buyers and with sellers was humming like a hive : 
Blithely on brass and timber the craftsman's stroke was 

ringing, 49 

And blithely o'er her panniers the market-girl was singing, 
And blithely young Virginia came smiling from her home : 
Ah ! woe for young Virginia, the sweetest maid in Borne ! 
With her small tablets in her hand, and her satchel on her 

arm, 
Forth she went bounding to the school, nor dreamed of shame 

or harm. 
She crossed the Forum shining with stalls in alleys gay, 55 
And just had reached the very spot whereon I stand this 

day, 
When up the varlet Marcus came ; not such as when ere- 

while 
He crouched behind his patron's heels with the true client 

smile : 
He came with lowering forehead, swollen features, and 

clenched fist, 



110 LAYS OF AXCIENT HOME. 

And strode across Virginia's path, and caught her by the 

"wrist. CO 

Hard strove the frighted maiden, and screamed with look 

aghast ; 
And at her scream from right and left the folk came run- 
ning fast ; 
The money-changer Crispus, with his thin silver hairs, 
And Hanno from the stately booth glittering with Punic lb 

wares, 
And the strong smith Muraena, grasping a half-forged brand, 
And Yolero the flesher, his cleaver in his hand, 06 

All came in wrath and wonder ; for all knew that fair child ; 
And, as she passed them twice a day, all kissed their hands 

and smiled ; 
And the strong smith Muraena gave Marcus such a blow, 
The caitiff reeled three paces back, and let the maiden go. 70 
Yet glared he fiercely round him, and growled in harsh, fell 

tone, 
" She's mine, and I will have her : I seek but for mine own : 
She is my slave, born in my honse, and stolen away and 

sold, 
The year of the sore sickness, 19 ere she was twelve hours 

old. 
'Twas in the sad September, the month of wail and fright, 75 
Two augurs were borne forth that morn ; the Consul died 

ere night. 
I wait on Appius Claudius, I waited on his sire: 
Let him who works the client wrong beware the patron's 

ire ! " 

So spake the varlet Marcus ; and dread and silence came 

On all the people at the sound of the great Claudian name. 

For then there was no Tribune to speak the word of might, 

Which makes the rich man tremble, and guards the poor 

man's right. 82 



VIRGINIA. 111 

There was no brave Licinius, no honest Sextius then ; 
But all the city, in great fear, obeyed the wicked Ten. 
Yet ere the varlet Marcus again might seize the maid, 85 
Who clung tight to Muraena's skirt, and sobbed, and shrieked 

for aid. 
Forth through the throng of gazers the young Icilius pressed, 
And stamped his foot, and rent his gown, and smote upon 

his breast. 
And sprang upon that column, by many a minstrel sung, 
Whereon three mouldering helmets, three rusting swords. 

are hung. 20 90 

And beckoned to the people, and in bold voice and clear 
Poured thick and fast the burning words which tyrants 

quake to hear. 

"Xow. by your children's cradles, now by your fathers' 

graves. 
Be men to-day, Quirites, 21 or be for ever slaves ! 
For this did Servius 22 give us laws ? For this did Lucrece 

bleed ? 95 

For this was the great vengeance wrought on Tarquiirs evil 

seed ? a 
For this did those false sons make red the axes of their 

sire ? - 4 
For this did Scaevola's right hand hiss in the Tuscan fire ? i5 
Shall the vile fox-earth awe the race that stormed the lion's 

den ? 
Shall we, who could not brook one lord, 33 crouch to the wicked 

Ten ? 100 

Oh for that ancient spirit which curbed the Senate's will! 
Oh for the tents which in old time whitened the Sacred 

Hill : * 

In those brave days our fathers stood firmly side by side ; 
They faced the Marcian 28 fury; they tamed the Fabian" 
pride : 



112 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

They drove the fiercest Quinctius 30 an outcast forth from 

Rome ; 105 

They sent the haughtiest Claudius 31 with shivered fasces 32 

home. 
But what their care bequeathed us our madness flung away : 
All the ripe fruit of threescore years was blighted in a day. 
Exult, ye proud Patricians ! The hard-fought fight is o'er. 
We strove for honours — 'twas in vain: for freedom — 'tis 

no more. no 

No crier to the polling summons the eager throng ; 
No Tribune breathes the word of might that guards the weak 

from wrong. 
Our very hearts, that were so high, sink down beneath your 

will. 
Riches, and lands, and power, and state — ye have them : — 

keep them still. 
Still keep the holy fillets ; still keep the purple gown, 115 
The axes, and the curule chair, the car, and laurel crown 33 : 
Still press us for your cohorts, and, when the fight is done, 
Still fill your garners from the soil which our good swords 

have won. 34 
Still, like a spreading ulcer, which leech-craft may not cure, 
Let your foul usance eat away the substance of the poor. 120 
Still let your haggard debtors bear all their fathers bore ; 
Still let your dens of torment be noisome as of yore ; 
No fire when Tiber freezes ; no air in dog-star heat ; 
And store of rods for free-born backs, and holes for free-born 

feet. 
Heaj3 heavier still the fetters ; bar closer still the grate ; 125 
Patient as sheep we yield us up unto your cruel hate. 
But, by the Shades 35 beneath us, and by the Gods above, 
Add not unto your cruel hate your yet more cruel love ! 3a 
Have ye not graceful ladies, whose spotless lineage springs 
From Consuls, and High Pontiffs. 37 and ancient Alban 38 

kings ? 130 



VIRGINIA. 113 

Ladies, who deign not on our paths to set their tender feet, 
"Who from their cars look down with scorn upon the wonder- 
ing street, 
"Who in Corinthian mirrors their own proud smiles behold. 
And breathe of Capuan 39 odours, and shine with Spanish 

gold ? 4U 
Then leave the poor Plebeian his single tie to life — 135 

The sweet, sweet love of daughter, of sister, and of wife, 
The gentle speech, the balm for all that his vexed soul 

endures, 
The kiss, in which he half forgets even such a } r oke as yours. 
Still let the maiden's beauty swell the father's breast with 

pride ; 
Still let the bridegroom's arms infold an unpolluted bride. 
Spare us the inexpiable wrong, the unutterable shame, m 
That turns the coward's heart to steel, the sluggard's blood 

to flame, 
Lest, when our latest hope is fled, ye taste of our despair, 
And learn by proof, in some wild hour, how much the 
wretched dare." 

. 41 

Straightway Virginius led the maid a little space aside. 145 
To where the reeking shambles stood, piled up with horn 

and hide, 
Close to yon low dark archwa}^, where, in a crimson flood, 
Leaps down to the great sewer 42 the gurgling stream of blood. 
Hard by, a flesher on a block had laid his whittle down ; 
Virginius caught the whittle up, and hid it in his gown. 150 
And then his eyes grew very dim, and his throat began to 

swell, 
And in a hoarse, changed voice he spake, " Farewell, sweet 

child ! Farewell ! 
Oh ! how I loved my darling ! Though stern I sometimes 

be, 



114 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

To thee, thou know'st I was not so. Who could be so to 

thee ? 154 

And how my darling loved me ! How glad she was to hear 
My footstep on the threshold when I came back last year ! 
And how she danced with pleasure to see my civic crown, 43 
And took my sword and hung it up, and brought me forth 

my gown ! 
iSow, all those things are over — yes, all thy pretty ways, 
Thy needlework, thy prattle, thy snatches of old lays ; 160 
And none will grieve when I go forth, or smile when I re- 
turn, 
Or watch beside the old man's bed, or weep upon his urn. 
The house that was the happiest within the Roman walls, 
The house that envied not the wealth of Capua's marble 

halls, 
Now, for the brightness of thy smile, must have eternal 

gloom, 165 

And for the music of thy voice, the silence of the tomb. 
The time is come. See how he points his eager hand this 

way ! 
See how his eyes gloat on thy grief, like a kite's upon the 

prey ! 
With all his wit, he little deems, that, spurned, betrayed, 

bereft, 
Thy father hath in his despair one fearful refuge left. 170 
He little deems that in this hand I clutch what still can 

save 
Thy gentle youth from taunts and blows, the portion of the 

slave ; 
Yea, and from nameless evil, that passeth taunt and blow — 
Foul outrage which thou knowest not, which thou shalt never 

know. 
Then clasp me round the neck once more, and give me one 

more kiss ; 175 

And now, mine own dear little girl, there is no way but this." 



VIRGINIA. 115 

With that he lifted high the steel, and smote her in the side, 
And in her blood she sank to earth, and with one sob she 
died. 

Then, for a little moment, all people held their breath ; 
And through the crowded Forum was stillness as of death ; 
And in another moment brake forth from one and all 181 
A cry as if the Yolscians 44 were coming o'er the wall. 
Some with averted faces, shrieking, fled home amain ; 
Some ran to call a leech ; and some ran to lift the slain : 
Some felt her lips and little wrist, if life might there be 

found ; . 185 

And some tore up their garments fast, and strove to stanch 

the wound. 
In vain they ran, and felt, and stanched ; for never truer blow 
That good right arm had dealt in fight against a Volscian foe. 

When Appius Claudius saw that deed, he shuddered and 

sank down, 
And hid his face some little space with the corner of his 

gown, 190 

Till, with white lips and bloodshot eyes, Virginius tottered 

nigh, 
And stood before the judgment-seat, and held the knife on 

high. 
" Oh ! dwellers in the nether gloom, avengers of the slain, 45 
By this clear blood I cry to you, do right between us twain ; 
And even as Appius Claudius hath dealt by me and mine, 195 
Deal you by Appius Claudius and all the Claudian line ! " 
So spake the slayer of his child, and turned, and went his 

way ; 
But first he cast one haggard glance to where the body lay, 
And writhed, and groaned a fearful groan, and then, with 

steadfast feet, 199 

Strode right across the market-place unto the Sacred Street. 



116 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

Then up sprang Appius Claudius : " Stop him ; alive or 

dead! 
Ten thousand pounds of copper 46 to the man who brings his 

head." 
He looked upon his clients; but none would work his will. 
He looked upon his lictors ; but they trembled, and stood still. 
And, as Virginius through the press his way in silence 

cleft, 205 

Ever the mighty multitude fell back to right and left. 
And he hath passed in safety unto his woeful home, 
And there ta'en horse to tell the camp what deeds are done 

in Borne. 

By this the flood of people was swollen from every side, 
And streets and porches round were filled with that overflow- 
ing tide ; 210 
And close around the body gathered a little train 
Of them that were the nearest and dearest to the slain. 
They brought a bier, and hung it with many a cypress 47 

crown, 
And gently they uplifted her, and gently laid her down. 
The face of Appius Claudius wore the Claudian scowl and 

sneer, 215 

And in the Claudian note he cried, " What doth this rabble 

here ? 
Have they no crafts to mind at home, that hitherward they 

stray ? 
Ho! lictors, clear the market-place, and fetch the corpse 

away ! " 
The voice of grief and fury till then had not been loud ; 
But a deep sullen murmur wandered among the crowd, 220 
Like the moaning noise that goes before the whirlwind on 

the deep, 
Or the growl of a fierce watch-dog but half -aroused from 

sleep. 



VIRGINIA. 117 

But when the lictors at that word, tall yeomen all and 

strong, 
Each with his axe and sheaf of twigs, went down into the 

throng, 
Those old men say, who saw that day of sorrow and of 

sin, - 225 

That in the Roman Forum was never such a din. 
The wailing, hooting, cursing, the howls of grief and hate, 
Were heard beyond the Pineian Hill, 48 beyond the Latin 

Gate. 49 
But close around the body, where stood the little train 
Of them that were the nearest and dearest to the slain, 230 
Xo cries were there, but teeth set fast, low whispers and 

black frowns, 
And breaking up of benches, and girding up of gowns. 
'Twas well the lictors might not pierce to where the maiden 

lay, 
Else surely had they been all twelve torn limb from limb 

that day. 
Eight glad they were to struggle back, blood streaming from 

their heads, 2:35 

With axes all in splinters, and raiment all in shreds. 
Then Appius Claudius gnawed his lip, and the blood left his 

cheek ; 
And thrice he beckoned with his hand, and thrice he strove 

to speak ; 
And thrice the tossing Forum set up a frightful yell ; 
" See, see, thou dog ! what thou hast done ; and hide thy 

shame in hell ! 240 

Thou that wouldst make our maidens slaves must first make 

slaves of men. 
Tribunes ! Hurrah for Tribunes ! Down with the wicked 

Ten ! " 
And straightway, thick as hailstones, came whizzing through 

the air 



118 LAYS OF ANCIENT KOME. 

Pebbles, and bricks, and potsherds, all round the curule 

chair : 244 

And upon Appius Claudius great fear and trembling came ; 
For never was a Claudius yet brave against aught but 

shame. 
Though the great houses love us not, we own, to do them 

right, 
That the great houses, all save one, have borne them well in 

fight. 
Still Cams of Corioli, 50 his triumphs and his wrongs, 
His vengeance and his mercy, live in our camp-fire songs. 250 
Beneath the yoke of Furius 51 oft have Gaul and Tuscan 

bowed ; 
And Rome may bear the pride of him of whom herself is 

proud. 
But evermore a Claudius shrinks from a stricken field, 
And changes colour like a maid at sight of sword and 

shield. 
The Claudian triumphs all were Avon within the city 

towers ; 255 

The Claudian yoke was never pressed on any neck but ours. 
A Cossus, like a wild cat, springs ever at the face ; 
A Fabius rushes like a boar against the shouting chase ; 
But the vile Claudian litter, raging with currish spite, 
Still yelps and snaps at those who run, still runs from those 

who smite. 260 

So now 'twas seen of Appius. When stones began to fly, 
He shook, and crouched, and wrung his hands, and smote 

upon his thigh. 
" Kind clients, honest lictors, stand by me in this fray ! 
Must I be torn in pieces ? Home, home, the nearest way ! " 
While yet he spake, and looked around with a bewildered 

stare, 265 

Four sturdy lictors put their necks beneath the curule 

chair ; 



VIRGINIA. 119 

And fourscore clients on the left, and fourscore on the 

right, 
Arrayed themselves with swords and staves, and loins girt 

up for fight. 
But, though without or staff or sword, so furious was the 

throng, 
That scarce the train with might and main could bring their 

lord along. 270 

Twelve times the crowd made at him ; five times they seized 

his gown ; 
Small chance was his to rise again, if once they got him 

down : 
And sharper came the pelting; and evermore the yell — 
" Tribunes ! we will have Tribunes ! " — rose with a louder 

swell : 
And the chair tossed as tosses a bark with tattered sail 275 
When raves the Adriatic beneath an eastern gale, 
When the Calabrian sea-marks 52 are lost in clouds of spume, 
And the great Thunder-Cape 53 has donned his veil of inky 

gloom. 
One stone hit Appius in the mouth, and one beneath the 

ear ; 
And ere he reached Mount Palatine, 54 he swooned with pain 

and fear. 280 

His cursed head, that he was wont to hold so high with 

pride, 
Now, like a drunken man's, hung down, and swayed from 

side to side ; 
And when his stout retainers had brought him to his door, 
His face and neck were all one cake of filth and clotted-gore. 
As Appius Claudius was that day, so may his grandson 

be ! 285 

God send Eome one such other sight, and send me there to 

see! 



THE PROPHECY OF CAPYS. 



It can hardly be necessary to remind any reader that, 
according to the popular tradition, Eomnlus, after he had 
slain his grand-uncle Amulius, and restored his grandfather 
Numitor, determined to quit Alba, the hereditary domain of 
the Sylvian princes, and to found a new city. The Gods, it 
was added, vouchsafed the clearest signs of the favour with 
which they regarded the enterprise, and of the high desti- 
nies reserved for the young colony. 

This event was likely to be a favourite theme of the old 
Latin minstrels. They would naturally attribute the proj- 
ect of Eomulus to some divine intimation of the power and 
prosperity which it was decreed that his city should attain. 
They would probably introduce seers foretelling the victories 
of unborn Consuls and Dictators, and the last great victory 
would generally occupy the most conspicuous place in the 
prediction. There is nothing strange in the supposition that 
the poet who was employed to celebrate the first great tri- 
umph of the Romans over the Greeks might throw his song 
of exultation into this form. 

The occasion was one likely to excite the strongest feel- 
ings of national pride, A great outrage had been followed 
by a great retribution. Seven years before this time, Lucius 
Posthumius Megellus, who sprang from one of the noblest 
houses of Borne, and had been thrice Consul, was sent am- 
bassador to Tarentum, with charge to demand reparation 
for grievous injuries. The Tarentines gave him audience 
in their theatre, where he addressed them in such Greek as 

121 



122 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

he could command, which, we may well believe, was not 
exactly such as Cineas would have spoken. An exquisite 
sense of the ridiculous belonged to the Greek character: 
and closely connected with this faculty was a strong pro- 
pensity to flippancy and impertinence. When Posthumius 
placed an accent wrong, his hearers burst into a laugh. 
When he remonstrated, they hooted him, and called him 
barbarian ; and at length hissed him off the stage as if he 
had been a bad actor. As the grave Eoman retired, a buf- 
foon who, from his constant drunkenness, was nicknamed 
the Pint-pot, came up with gestures of the grossest inde- 
cency, and bespattered the senatorial gown with filth. Pos- 
thumius turned round to the multitude, and held up the 
gown, as if appealing to the universal law of nations. The 
sight only increased the insolence of the Tarentines. They 
clapped their hands, and set up a shout of laughter which 
shook the theatre. " Men of Tarentum," said Posthumius, 
" it will take not a little blood to wash this gown. ?; * 

Eome, in consequence of this insult, declared war against 
the Tarentines. The Tarentines sought for allies beyond 
the Ionian Sea. Pyrrhus, King of Epirus, came to their 
help with a large army ; and for the first time, the two 
great nations of antiquity were fairly matched against each 
other. 

The fame of Greece in arms, as well as in arts, was then 
at the height. Half a century earlier, the career of Alex- 
ander had excited the admiration and terror of all nations 
from the Ganges to the Pillars of Hercules. Koyal houses, 
founded by Macedonian captains, still reigned at Antioch and 
Alexandria. That barbarian warriors, led by barbarian chiefs, 
should win a pitched battle against Greek valour guided 
by Greek science, seemed as incredible as it would now seem 
that the Burmese or the Siamese should, in the open plain, 
put to flight an equal number of the best English troops. 

* Dion. Hal. De Legationibus. 



THE PROPHECY OF CAPYS. 123 

The Tarentines were convinced that their countrymen were 
irresistible in war; and this conviction had emboldened 
them to treat with the grossest indignity one whom they 
regarded as the representative of an inferior race. Of the 
Greek generals then living, Pyrrhus was indisputably the 
first. Among the troops who were trained in the Greek 
discipline, his Epirotes ranked high. His expedition to 
Italy was a turning-point in the history of the world. He 
found there a people who, far inferior to the Athenians and 
Corinthians in the fine arts, in the speculative sciences, and 
in all the refinements of life, were the best soldiers on the 
face of the earth. Their arms, their gradations of rank, 
their order of battle, their method of intrenchment, were 
all of Latin origin, and had all been gradually brought near 
to perfection, not by the study of foreign models, but by 
the genius and experience of many generations of great 
native commanders. The first words which broke from the 
king, when his practised eye had surveyed the Roman en- 
campment, were full of meaning: — "These barbarians," 
he said, " have nothing barbarous in their military arrange- 
ments." He was at first victorious ; for his own talents 
were superior to those of the captains who were opposed to 
him ; and the Eomans were not prepared for the onset of 
the elephants of the East, which were then for the first time 
seen in Italy — moving mountains, with long snakes for 
hands. # But the victories of the Epirotes were fiercely dis- 
puted, dearly purchased, and altogether unprofitable. At 
length, Manius Curius Dentatus, who had in his first Con- 
sulship won two triumphs, was again placed at the head 
of the Roman Commonwealth, and sent to encounter the 
invaders. A great battle was fought near Beneventum. 
Pyrrhus was completely defeated. He repassed the sea; 
and the world learned, with amazement, that a people had 

* Anguimamis is the old Latin epithet for an elephant. Lucretius, ii. 
538, v. 1302. 



124 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

been discovered, who, in fair fighting, were superior to the 
best troops that had been drilled on the system of Parmenio 
and Antigonus. 

The conquerors had a good right to exult in their success ; 
for their glory was all their own. They had not learned 
from their enemy how to conquer him. It was with their 
own national arms, and in their own national battle-array, 
that they had overcome weapons and tactics long believed 
to be invincible. The pilum and the broadsword had 
vanquished the Macedonian spear. The legion had broken 
the Macedonian phalanx. Even the elephants, when the 
surprise produced by their first appearance was over, could 
cause no disorder in the steady yet flexible battalions of 
Kome. 

It is said by Plorus, and may easily be believed, that the 
triumph far surpassed in magnificence any that Rome had 
previously seen. The only spoils which Papirius Cursor 
and Fabius Maximus could exhibit were flocks and herds, 
waggons of rude structure, and heaps of spears and helmets. 
But now, for the first time, the riches of Asia and the arts 
of Greece adorned a Eoman pageant. Plate, fine stuffs, 
costly furniture, rare animals, exquisite paintings and 
sculptures, formed part of the procession. At the banquet 
would be assembled a crowd of warriors and statesmen, 
among whom Manius Curius Dentatus would take the high- 
est room. Caius Fabricius Luscinus, then, after two Con- 
sulships and two triumphs, Censor of the Commonwealth, 
would doubtless occupy a place of honour at the board. In 
situations less conspicuous probably lay some of those who 
were, a few years later, the terror of Carthage ; Caius 
Duilius, the founder of the maritime greatness of his coun- 
try ; Marcus Atilius Regulus, who owed to defeat a renown 
far higher than that which he had derived from his vic- 
tories ; and Caius Lutatius Catulus, who, while suffering 
from a grievous wound, fought the great battle of the 



THE PROPHECY OF CAPYS. 125 

JEgates, and brought the First Punic War to a triumphant 
close. It is impossible to recount the names of these emi- 
nent citizens, without reflecting that they were all, without 
exception, Plebeians, and would, but for the ever-memorable 
struggle maintained by Caius Licinius and Lucius Sextius, 
have been doomed to hide in obscurity, or to waste in civil 
broils the capacity and energy which prevailed against 
Pyrrhus and Hamilcar. 

On such a day we may suppose that the patriotic enthu- 
siasm of a Latin poet would vent itself in reiterated shouts 
of Io triumphe, such as were uttered by Horace on a far less 
exciting occasion, and in boasts resembling those which 
Virgil put into the mouth of Anchises. The superiority of 
some foreign nations, and especially of the Greeks, in the 
lazy arts of peace, would be admitted w T ith disdainful can- 
dour ; but pre-eminence in all the qualities which fit a people 
to subdue and govern mankind w r ould be claimed for the 
Eomans. 

The following lay belongs to the latest age of Latin 
ballad-poetry. Naevius and Livius Andronicus were prob- 
ably among the children whose mothers held them up to 
see the chariot of Curius go by. The minstrel who sang 
on that day might possibly have lived to read the first 
hexameters of Ennius, and to see the first comedies of Plau- 
tus. His poem, as might be expected, shows a much wider 
acquaintance with the geography, manners, and produc- 
tions of remote nations, than would have been found in 
compositions of the age of Camillus. But he troubles him- 
self little about dates, and having heard travellers talk 
with admiration of the Colossus of Rhodes, and of the 
structures and gardens with which the Macedonian kings 
of Syria had embellished their residence on the banks of 
the Orontes, he has never thought of inquiring whether 
these things existed in the age of Romulus. 



THE PROPHECY OF CAPYS. 

A LAY SUNG AT THE BANQUET IN THE CAPITOL, ON THE DAT WHEREON 
MANIUS CURIUS DENTATUS, A SECOND TIME CONSUL, TRIUMPHED 
OVER KING PYRRHUS AND THE TARENTINES, IN THE YEAR OF THE 
CITY CCCCLXXIX. 



Now slain is King Amulius, 1 

Of the great Sylvian line, 
Who reigned in Alba Longa, 2 

On the throne of Aventine. 3 
Slain is the Pontiff Camers, 4 5 

Who spake the words of doom : 
" The children to the Tiber ; 

The mother to the tomb." 

IT. 

In Alba's lake no fisher 

His net to-day is flinging : 10 

On the dark rind of Alba's oaks 

To-day no axe is ringing : 
The yoke hangs o'er the manger : 

The scythe lies in the hay : 
Through all the Alban villages 15 

No work is done to-day. 



in. 



And every Alban burgher 

Hath donned his whitest gown 
126 



THE PKOPHECY OF CAPYS. 127 

And every head in Alba 

AYearetli a poplar crown 5 ; 20 

And every Alban door-post 

With boughs and flowers is gay : 
For to-day the dead are living ; 

The lost are found to-day. 

IV. 

They were doomed by a bloody king : 25 

They were doomed by a lying priest : 
They were cast on the raging flood : 

They were tracked by the raging beast : 
Raging beast and raging flood 

Alike have spared the prey ; 30 

And to-day the dead are living : 

The lost are found to-day. 

v. 

The troubled river knew them, 

And smoothed his }^ellow foam, 6 
And gently rocked the cradle 35 

That bore the fate of Rome. 
The ravening she- wolf knew them, 

And licked them o'er and o'er, 
And gave them of her own fierce milk, 

Rich with raw flesh and gore. 40 

Twenty winters, twenty springs, 

Since then have rolled away ; 
And to-day the dead are living: 

The lost are found to-day. 

VI. 

Blithe it was to see the twins, 45 

Right goodly youths and tall, 



128 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

Marching from Alba Longa 

To their old grandsire's hall. 
Along their path fresh garlands 

Are hung from tree to tree : 50 

Before them stride the pipers, 

Piping a note of glee. 

VII. 

On the right goes Romulus, 

With arms to the elbows red, 
And in his hand a broadsword, 55 

And on the blade a head — 
A head in an iron helmet, 

With horse-hair hanging down, 
A shaggy head, a swarthy head, 

Fixed in a ghastly frown — 60 

The head of King Amulius 

Of the great Sylvian line, 
Who reigned in Alba Longa, 

On the throne of Aventine. 

VIII. 

On the left side goes Remus, 65 

With wrists and fingers red, 
And in his hand a boar-spear, 

And on the point a head — 
A wrinkled head and aged, 

With silver beard and hair, 70 

And holy fillets round it, 

Such as the pontiffs wear — 
The head of ancient Camers, 

Who spake the words of doom : 
" The children to the Tiber ; 75 

The mother to the toinb." 



THE PROPHECY OF CAPYS. 129 



IX. 

Two and two behind the twins 

Their trusty comrades go, 
Four and forty valiant men, 

With club, and axe, and bow. 80 

On each side every hamlet 

Pours forth its joyous crowd, 
Shouting lads and baying dogs 

And children laughing loud, 
And old men weeping fondly 85 

As Rhea's boys go by, 
And maids who shriek to see the heads, 

Yet, shrieking, press more nigh. 



So they marched along the lake ; 

They marched by fold and stall, 90 

By corn-field and by vineyard, 

Unto the old man's hall. 



XT. 

In the hall-gate sate Capys, 

Capys, the sightless seer ; 
From head to foot he trembled 95 

As Romulus drew near. 
And up stood stiff his thin white hair, 

And his blind eyes flashed fire : 
" Hail ! foster child of the wonderous nurse ! 

Hail ! son of the wonderous sire ! 100 

XII. 

" But thou — what dost thou here 
In the old man's peaceful hall ? 



130 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

What doth the eagle in the coop, 

The bison in the stall ? 
Our corn fills many a garner ; 105 

Our vines clasp many a tree ; 
Our flocks are white on many a hill 

But these are not for thee. 

XIII. 

" For thee no treasure ripens 

In the Tartessian mine 7 : 110 

For thee no ship brings precious bales 

Across the Libyan brine 8 : 
Thou shalt not drink from amber ; 

Thou shalt not rest on down 9 ; 
Arabia 10 shall not steep thy locks, 115 

Nor Sidon tinge thy gown. 11 

XIV. 

Leave gold and myrrh and jewels, 

Eich table and soft bed, 
To them who of man's seed are born, 

Whom woman's milk have fed. 120 

Thou wast not made for lucre, 

For pleasure, nor for rest ; 
Thou, that art sprung from the War-god's loins, 

And hast tugged at the she-wolfs breast. 

xv. 

" From sunrise unto sunset 125 

All earth shall hear thy fame : 
A glorious city thou shalt build, 

And name it by thy name : 
And there, unquenched through ages, 

Like Vesta's 12 sacred fire, 130 

Shall live the spirit of thy nurse, 

The spirit of thy sire. 



THE PBOPHECY OF CAPYS. 181 



XVI. 

" The ox toils through the furrow, 

Obedient to the goad ; 
The patient ass, up flinty paths, 135 

Plods with his weary load : 
With whine and bound the spaniel 

His master's whistle hears ; 
And the sheep yields her patiently 

To the loud clashing shears. uo 

XVII. 

" But thy nurse will hear no master ; 

Thy nurse will bear no load ; 
And woe to them that shear her, 

And woe to them that goad ! 
When all the pack, loud baying, 145 

Her bloody lair surrounds, 
She dies in silence, biting hard, 

Amidst the dying hounds. 

XVIII. 

" Pomona 13 loves the orchard ; 

And Liber u loves the vine ; 150 

And Pales 15 loves the straw-built shed 

Warm with the breath of kine ; 
And Venus 16 loves the whispers 

Of plighted youth and maid, 
In April's ivory moonlight 155 

Beneath the chestnut shade. 

XIX. 

" But thy father loves the clashing 
Of broadsword and of shield : 



132 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

He loves to drink the steam that reeks 

From the fresh battle-field ; 160 

He smiles a smile more dreadful 
Than his own dreadful frown, 

When he sees the thick black cloud of smok3 
Go up from the conquered town. 

xx. 

" And such as is the War-god, 165 

The author of thy line, 
And such as she who suckled thee, 

Even such be thou and thine. 
Leave to the soft Campanian 

His baths and his perfumes ; 170 

Leave to the sordid race of Tyre 

Their dyeing-vats and looms : 
Leave to the sons of Carthage 

The rudder and the oar : 
Leave to the Greek his marble Nymphs 175 

And scrolls of wordy lore. 

XXI. 

" Thine, Roman, is the pilum 17 : 

Roman, the sword is thine, 
The even trench, the bristling mound, 18 

The legion's ordered line 19 ; 180 

And thine the wheels of triumph, 20 

Which with their laurelled train 
Move slowly up the shouting streets 

To Jove's eternal fane. 

XXII. 

" Beneath thy yoke the Volscian 185 

Shall vail his lofty brow ; 



THE PROPHECY OF CAPYS. 133 

Soft Capua's curled revellers 21 

Before thy chairs shall bow : 
The Lucumoes of Arnus 22 

Shall quake thy rods to see ; 190 

And the proud Samnite's heart of steel 23 

Shall yield to only thee. 

XXIII. 

"The Gaul shall come against thee 

From the land of snow and night : 
Thou shalt give his fair-haired armies 195 

To the raven and the kite. 

XXIV. 

u . The Greek shall come against thee, 

The conqueror of the East. 
Beside him stalks to battle 

The huge earth-shaking beast/ 4 200 

The beast on whom the castle 

With all its guards doth stand, 
The beast who hath between his eyes 

The serpent for a hand. 
First march the bold Epirotes, 205 

Wedged close with shield and spear K 
And the ranks of false Tarentum 

Are glittering in the rear. 

XXV. 

" The ranks of false Tarentum 

Like hunted sheep shall fly : 210 

In vain the bold Epirotes 

Shall round their standards die 
And Apennines grey vultures 

Shall have a noble feast 
On the fat and the eyes 215 

Of the huge earth-shaking beast. 



134 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 



XXYI. 

" Hurrah ! for the good weapons 

That keep the War-god's land. 
Hurrah ! for Rome's stout pilum 

In a stout Roman hand. 220 

Hurrah ! for Rome's short broads word, 26 

That through the thick array 
Of levelled spears and serried shields 

Hews deep its gory way. 

XXVII. 

" Hurrah ! for the great triumph 225 

That stretches many a mile. 
Hurrah ! for the wan captives 

That pass in endless file. 
Ho ! bold Epirotes, whither 

Hath the Reel King 27 ta'en flight ? 230 

Ho ! dogs of false Tarentum, 

Is not the gown washed white 28 ? 

XXVIII. 

" Hurrah ! for the great triumph 

That stretches many a mile. 
Hurrah ! for the rich dye of Tyre, 235 

And the fine web of Nile, 
The helmets gay with plumage 

Torn from the pheasant's wings, 
The belts set thick with starry gems 

That shone on Indian kings, 240 

The urns of massy silver, 

The goblets rough with gold, 
The many-coloured tablets bright 

With loves and wars of old, 



THE PROPHECY OP CAPYS. 135 

The stone that breathes and struggles, 245 

The brass that seems to speak ; — 
Such cunning they who dwell on high 

Have given unto the Greek. 

XXIX. 

" Hurrah ! for Manius Curius, 29 

The bravest son of Eome, 250 

Thrice in utmost need sent forth, 

Thrice drawn in triumph home. 
Weave, weave, for Manius Curius 

The third embroidered gown w : 
Make ready the third lofty car, 31 255 

And twine the third green crown 32 ; 
And yoke the steeds of Bosea 33 

With necks like a bended bow, 
And deck the bull, Mevania's ?A bull, 

The bull as white as snow. 260 

XXX. 

" Blest and thrice blest the Roman 

Who sees Rome's brightest day, 
Who sees that long victorious pomp 

Wind down the Sacred Way, 35 
And through the bellowing Forum, 265 

And round the Suppliant's Grove, 36 
Up to the everlasting gates 

Of Capitolian Jove. 

XXXI. 

" Then where, o'er two bright havens, 

The towers of Corinth frown 37 ; 270 

Where the gigantic King of Day ^ 
On his own Rhodes looks down ; 



136 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

Where soft Orontes murmurs 

Beneath the laurel shades 39 ; 
Where Nile reflects the endless length 275 

Of dark-red colonnades 40 ; 
Where in the still deep water, 

Sheltered from waves and blasts, 
Bristles the dusky forest 

Of Byrsa's 41 thousand masts ; 280 

Where fur-clad hunters wander 

Amidst the northern ice ; 
Where through the sand of morning-land 

The camel bears the spice 42 ; 
Where Atlas 43 flings his shadow 285 

Ear o'er the western foam, 
Shall be great fear on all who hear 

The mighty name of Koine." 



NOTES. 



HORATIUS. 

1. " The year of the city ccclx " = 393 b.c. 

2. "Lars Porsena." "Lar" is the Latin word (derived from the 
Etruscan), indicating one of a class of minor divinities who were either 
family gods of the hearth or public patrons of roads, streets, and even 
cities. They were not of divine origin, but the deified souls of men, 
and, in the case of family lares, of deceased ancestors. It was more or 
less customary throughout the ancient world to assume or endeavor to 
anticipate a coming apotheosis in the case of rulers, and this was done 
sometimes indirectly by attributing the divine quality by means of a 
title or name, sometimes in terms by the direct flattery of courtiers 
and subjects. So w T e find several of the Roman emperors legally 
deified and worshipped during their lives, and doubtless the Etruscan 
" Lars " was used in this sense, as the name or title of king or priest, 
offices apt to be held by the same person in the early Italian commu- 
nities. "Lars Porsena" maybe thus freely rendered. '-The Divine 
Porsena." 

3. " Clusiuni" occupied the site of the modern Chiusi. 

4. '-The Nine Gods." The Dei novensiles of Etruscan theology 
were those who had the power to launch lightning and thunderbolts. 
They were Jupiter (Tinia), Juno (Cupra or Uni), Minerva (Menrfa), 
Vejovis (an evil Jupiter), Summanus (god of night), Vulcanus 
(Sethlan or Velch), Saturnus, Mars (Maris), and a ninth wmo has not 
been satisfactorily identified, but was probably Neptunus (Xethuns), 
Janus, or Hercules (Ercle or Hercle). 

5. "The great house of Tarquin." The legendary history of the 
house of Tarquin is told by Livy, Book T, Chaps. 35-60. Being them- 
selves of Etruscan descent, they naturally appealed to the Etruscans 
for aid. 

6. " Volaterrse," now Volterra. Much of the ancient wall is still 
standing, and shows a height of forty feet, a thickness of thirteen feet, 
and a circumference of four and a half miles. The strength of the 

137 



138 NOTES. 

town may be inferred from the fact that it withstood for two years a 
siege by Sulla's troops. It was quite customary to attribute such 
works to a superhuman agency. 

7. " Seagirt Populonia." The site of Populonia, not far from the 
modern Piombino, is now occupied by a poor village. 

8. "Pisee," now Pisa. 

9. " Massilia's triremes." Massilia, now Marseilles, was a flour- 
ishing Greek colony founded about 600 b.c. It was very prominent 
commercially and strong enough to contend with Carthage in naval 
warfare. Gallic slaves may be readily assumed to have been one of 
its leading exports. The trireme, or galley with three banks of oars, 
was the " ship-of-the-line " of the period. 

10. "Sweet Clanis." The Clanis is now the Chiana, which joins 
the Paglia at Orvieto and flows thence into the Tiber. 

11. "Cortona" still stands upon its hill (2170 feet), looking down 
upon the valley of the Chiana. 

12. " Auser's rill." The Auser (or Ausar) rose in the Apennines 
on the border of Liguria and flowed into the Arnus at Pisse. It is 
identified with the modern Serchio, though the latter empties into the 
Mediterranean Sea some distance north of the Arno. A new channel 
is supposed to have formed. 

13. " The Ciminian hill." Mount Cimeno, near Viterbo, was once 
considered the great natural bulwark of central Etruria. 

14. " Clitumnus." The Clitumnus, now the Clitumno, rises near 
the little village of Le Vene between Trevi and Spoleto. A sacred 
river, the white cattle bred upon its banks were especially esteemed 
for sacrificial purposes. Even now the people of the neighborhood 
imagine that its water has the magic attribute of turning cattle white. 
For a charming description see Pliny's letter to Pomanus, VIII, 8. 

15. "The Volsinian mere," now the famous Lago di Bolsena. 

16. " Arretium," now Arezzo. 

17. "Umbro." The Uinbro, now the Ombrone, flows from near 
Siena southwesterly into the sea. 

18. "Luna." The ruins of Luna lie on the coast not far from 
Spezzia, and a few miles east of Pta. Bianca. 

19. "Traced from the right on linen white." Contrary to the 
Roman system the Etruscan wrote from right to left — a strong indi- 
cation of their Oriental origin. Their sacred books were numerous 
and are referred to by different writers of antiquity as Libri Etrusci 
— Chartce Etruscce — Scripta Etrusca — Tusci libelli — Etniscce clisci- 
plinoe libri — Libri fatal es, rituales, haruspicini, fulgurates ettonitru- 



NOTES. 139 

ales — Libri Tagetici — Sacra Tagetica — Sacra Acherortiica — and 

Libri Acherontici. They are supposed to have been written by or taken 
down from the lips of Tages, a being possessed of the face of a child 
but the wisdom of a sage, who was ploughed up in a field near Tar- 
quinii. Cicero on Divinations, II, 23. See also for books of divination, 
Cicero on Divinations, 1, 12, 33, 43, and 44 ; II, 54. Linen was written 
upon in early times, but probably only in case of sacred writings or 
state records. See Livy IV, 7. 

20. ' ' Nurscia's altars." This name is not familiar, though no doubt 
Macaulay had authority for the spelling. The allusion is probably to 
Nortia, the Etruscan goddess of fortune, at whose temple at Volsinii 
a nail was driven to record the passage of each year. 

21. " The golden shields of Home." The Ancilia were the twelve 
bronze (or golden?) shields that hung in the temple of Mars Gradivus 
on the Palatine Hill. One was supposed to have fallen from heaven, 
and the soothsayers had declared that so long as it remained in Rome 
the state would endure. JSunia Pompilius, the then reigning king, 
thereupon had eleven others made exactly like it to lessen the chance 
of its being stolen, and constituted a college of twelve priests, the salii, 
whose duty it was to guard it. See Ovid's '-Fasti,'' III, 377. 

22. "Sutrium." The modern Sutri. 

23. "The Tusculan Mamilius." Octavius Mamilius was son-in-law 
of King Tarquin, who had endeavored during his reign to attach to his 
interests many of the chief men of the Latins. Tusculum, now only 
a few ruins, stood near the modern Frascati, and was one of the most 
important of the Latin cities. It was fabled to have been founded by 
Telegonus, son of Ulysses and Circe, and was the birthplace of the 
elder Cato and the favorite residence of Cicero (note his "Tusculan 
Disputations "). 

24. "The yellow Tiber." The color of the Tiber is due to the 
swiftness of the current that sweeps down and holds in suspension 
many particles of earth and clay. 

25. "The spacious champaign. 1 ' The Roman Campagna may be 
said to be the plain bounded on the north by the Ciminian forest, 
on the south by the Alban Hills, on the east by the Sabine Apennines, 
and on the west by the sea, 

26. "Skins of wine." The early method of keeping and carrying 
the cheaper grades of wine was in sacks or bottles made of the skins 
of animals, and the poorer wines of Spain and Greece are still kept in 
" skins." 

27. "The rock Tarpeian." The Tarpeian Rock, from which con- 



140 KOTES. 

demned traitors were thrown in early days, was presumably the high- 
est point of the Capitoline Hill. The formation has changed very 
much and, though the spot is still pointed out, its alleged location is 
not considered beyond suspicion. 

28. 4i The Fathers of the City." The Fathers were the three hun- 
dred senators, heads of the three hundred families of the three tribes, 
those of the last admitted tribe, the Luceres, being known as the 
patres minorum gentium. After the institution of the republic, 
vacancies which had occurred in the senate, either by the killing of 
obnoxious senators by Tarquin, or by the departure of those who 
accompanied him into exile, were filled by certain chosen plebeians of 
equestrian rank, who, because they were enrolled with the others, were 
known as conscripti. Hence the senate was called Patres et conscripti, 
shortened into Patres conscripti, " Conscript fathers." 

29. " Crustumerium," a colony from Alba, is supposed to have 
been situated in the mountains near the sources of the Allia (now the 
Aia or Fosso clella Bettina). It was captured by Romulus and again 
by Tarquinius Priscus. 

30. "Ostia," founded by Ancus Marcius at the mouth of the 
Tiber, was the ancient seaport of Rome. It is now about two and a 
half miles from the coast, in consequence of the vast quantity of sand, 
earth, etc., carried down and deposited by the river. 

31. " Janiculum," now known as the Monte Gianicolo, was the 
heights on the western bank of the Tiber, first fortified and connected 
with the city by Ancus Marcius. A white banner floated from its top, 
and was lowered only when an enemy came in sight, to warn the 
burghers of the threatened attack. 

32. " The Consul." Two consuls (first called praetors), elected each 
year, administered the Roman government, being vested with all the 
civil and military prerogatives of the kings, except that of high-priest of 
the state. They presided alternately for a month at a time. 

33. "The River-Gate." It is probable that there were originally 
two gates where the walls approached the river bank : the Carmen- 
talis in the north wall, and the Flumentana in the south, although this 
is contrary to the conclusions of most antiquarians, who place the 
Porta Flumentana on the north near the Porta Carmentalis, thus 
locating two gates (not to mention the special Porta Triumphalis for 
the use of a triumphing imperator) in the short stretch of wall between 
the river and the Capitoline Hill. In the south wall they locate the 
Porta Trigemina, from which the wall ran unbroken a distance of over 
half a mile around the Aventine Hill to the Porta Naevia. Macaulay 



NOTES. 141 

undoubtedly places the Flumentana in the south wall (see note 60), 
and. while there seems to be no definite authority for it. we may 
imagine his reasoning. But one gate was needed on each side. We 
know the Carmentalis was in the north wall, and doubtless that gate 
in the south which was nearest the Tiber would be known as the 
Porta Flumentana or u River-Gate." Later, when the Carmentalis 
became a gate of evil omen, owing to the Fabii marching through it on 
their fatal expedition to Cremera (see Macaulay's Preface), it doubtless 
became necessary to build a third gate even in so short a stretch of 
wall. People would not use the Carmentalis, and the Triumphalis 
could be opened only for a specific purpose. Therefore a new " River- 
Grate" was built close to the Tiber. Meanwhile it is probable that 
the old " River-Gate " was an insufficient outlet for its district, and was 
enlarged into a three-arched gate, thence called the Trigemina ; and so 
the name " River-Gate" might very naturally have shifted from the 
southern to the northern portal. An examination of a diagram of the 
Servian wall at these points will show the force of this explanation, 
and every reference which has led the classical authorities to the con- 
clusion that the Porta Flumentana was in the wall between the Capitol 
and the river is met equally well by the suggested shifting of the 
name. 

3-4. "The bridge." This was the Sublician Bridge, which then 
formed the sole connection between the un walled river front of the 
city and the interior of the lines of wall which joined it to the fortified 
citadel on Janiculum. It has been located a little below the sole re- 
maining pier of the Pons JEmilius, where some apparent remains of an 
ancient wooden bridge have been discovered. 

35. "Twelve fair cities." Twelve cities or cantons composed the 
Etruscan confederation. The number, however, was probably not abso- 
lutely fixed, and there were undoubtedly changes in the membership. 
At the date of the narrative they were probably Clusium. Volaterrae, 
Cortona, Arretium, Perusia (now Perugia), Tetulonia, Volsinii, Tar- 
quinii (near the modern Corneto), Caere (now Cervetri and from 
which the word " ceremony " is said to have been derived), Yeii (near 
the modern village of Isola Farnese), Yolci, and Falerii. 

30. " Each warlike Lucumo." " Lucumo " was a title of nobility, 
or authority, sacerdotal as well as civil. It is said to be derived from 
the Etruscan lauchme, meaning " inspired." 

37. " Cilnius of Arretium." Several of the names of Macaulay's 
Etruscan heroes are based merely on the fact that they are Etruscan 
in their derivation. That of Cilnius, however, was evidently suggested 



142 NOTES. 

by the gens name of Caius Cilnius Maecenas, the friend of Augustus 
and patron of literature, who was a native of Arretium. 

38. " The four-fold shield." Compare " Iliad," XVIII, 540-542. 

39. " The hold by reedy Thrasymene." Probably Cortona, which 
lies about seven miles from the Lacus Trasimenus, now Lago Trasimeno. 

40. "False Sextus." The story of Sextus Tarquinius and his deed 
and its consequences is told by Livy, I, 57 et seq. 

41. u The Captain of the Gate." See note 33. 

42. " The holy maidens." The vestal virgins who guarded the fire 
that burned forever upon the hearth of Vesta were originally de- 
rived from Alba and adopted into the Roman hierarchy by Numa. A 
full account of their organization, duties, privileges, etc., will be found 
in any dictionary of antiquities. 

43. " In yon strait path." The passage between the two walls that 
connected Janiculum with the bridge. 

44. "A Eamnian proud." The Eamnians (Hamnenses), so named 
from Romulus, were the original burghers or nobles of Rome, and their 
descendants. 

45. "Of Titian blood." The Titians (Titie?ises) , so called from 
Titus Tatius the Sabine leader, were the descendants of the second 
century of nobles chosen from the Sabines so as to give each people 
an equal voice in the united government. 

46. ' ' Then lands were fairly portioned. " Alluding to that most fruit- 
ful source of quarrels between the patricians and plebeians over the use 
or division of the public or conquered land. All through the early life 
of the Roman commonwealth the proposal of an agrarian law was 
the signal for the gravest civil commotions. 

47. " Green Tifernum." Tifernum occupied the site of the modern 
Citta di Castello. It was an Umbrian rather than Etruscan town. 

48. " Ilva's mines." Ilva was the ancient name of Elba. It was 
celebrated for its iron mines. 

49. Nequinum, now Narni ; and the ancient Xar is known as the 
Nera. The Umbrians, thought by some to have been the original in- 
habitants of Italy, seem to have had no central government like the 
Latins and Etruscans, and in several wars we find Umbrian cities 
lighting on each side. 

50. " Ocnus of Ealerii. " Falerii stood near the modern town of 
Civita Castellana. 

51. "Lausulus of Urgo." Urgo or Urgos has been identified with 
the little island of Gorgona not far from Leghorn. 

52. ' ' Aruns of Volsinium . ' * Volsinium (or Volsinii) is now Orvieto. 



NOTES. 143 

53. " Cosa's fen." The ruins of Cosa, now known as Ansedonia, 
are on the seacoast near Orbetello. 

54. " Albinia's shore. 1 ' The Albinia is now known as the Albegna. 
It flows southwesterly into the Mediterranean, just above the marshes 
of Orbetello. 

55. " The she-wolf's litter." In allusion to the nurturing of Romu- 
lus and Remus. The Romans were often called " the wolves of Italy." 

56. " Mount Al vermis." The reference is doubtless to Mount Alver- 
nia, upon which stands a modern village of the same name, about two 
miles north of Chiusi. 

57. "And the pale augurs, muttering low, gaze on the blasted head." 
As to occurrences which were considered subjects for augury, read 
Livy, XXI. 62 ; XXII, 1 ; XXIII, 31, and XXIV, 10 and 44. 

58. "Palatums." The Rome of Romulus occupied only the Pala- 
tine Hill. Later, after the walls of Senilis had included the seven 
hills, the Palatine remained the especial residence quarter of the great 
patrician families. 

59. "Oh, Tiber ! father Tiber !" In the classical world, each river 
had its presiding deity of the same name, whose worship was especially 
cultivated by dwellers upon its banks. Compare " Iliad," XXI, 242 et 
seq. 

60. "The River-Gate." As the swift current, running southward. 
carried Horatius outside the un walled stretch by the bridge, the River- 
Gate through which Macaulay makes him enter the city must have 
been on the site of the Porta Trigemina, See note 33. 

61. " The corn-land, that was of public right." The ager publicus 
of Rome was land derived from the conquest of other cities and 
states. Owned by the state, it was either divided among colonists, 
rented out to Roman citizens on shares, or used for common pasturage. 

62. " As much as two strong oxen could plough from morn till 
night." The Roman unit of land measure was the jugerum (about 
two-thirds of an acre), derived from the word jugum, a yoke, and sup- 
posed to represent the ploughing of a yoke of oxen in one day. 

63. " In the Comitium." The Comitium was a square space adjoin- 
ing the Forum on the north, and probably elevated above it by a few 
steps. Here were held the comitia, or assemblies of the Roman peo- 
ple. It may be said to have been the patrician end of the Forum. 

64. " To charge the Yolscian home." The Volscians were a peo- 
ple of southern Latium with whom the Romans were more or less con- 
tinuously at war for two hundred years from the reign of Tarquinius 
Superbus. 



144 NOTES. 

65. " Wives still pray to Juno." Juno Lucina was especially in- 
voked by women looking forward to maternity. 

66. " The good logs of Algidus." Algidus, now Monte Algido, is 
the highest summit of the Alban Mountains. 

THE BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLUS. 

1. "Ho, lictors, clear the way!" The lictors were the special 
attendants of the consuls and dictators, and bore the emblems of su- 
preme civil authority, the axes bound in bundles of elm rods (secures 
et fasces), to symbolize the power over life and death. The usual 
form of Roman execution was scourging and beheading. 

2. " The Knights will ride." For information as to the equestrian 
order, see the Introduction to this poem. Also, consult any dictionary 
of classical antiquities. 

3. " Castor in the Eorum." Three columns still mark the site of 
the temple of Castor and Pollux in the Eorum. They stand at the 
foot of the Palatine Hill, near the ruins of the temple of Yesta. 

4. "Mars without the wall." The temple of Mars stood upon a 
small elevation beside the Appian Way, about half a mile beyond 
the Porta Capena. 

5. "Each Knight is robed in purple." The knights, during the 
ceremony of the Equitum transvectio wore the trabea, a white gown 
with horizontal purple stripes. It was one of the original badges of 
the kingly dignity. 

6. " The Yellow River." See " Horatius," note 24. 

7. "The Sacred Hill." The allusion here is doubtless to the 
Capitoline Hill, whereon stood the Capitolium dedicated to Jupiter, 
Juno, and Minerva, rather than to the Mons Sacer mentioned in 
1 ' Virginia. ' ' 

8. "The proud Ides of Quintilis." The Ides of Quintilis was 
July 15. 

9. "Gay are the Martian Kalends." On the Martian Kalends, 
March 1, was celebrated the festival of the Matronalia, mainly to com- 
memorate the ending of the war between the Romans and Sabines 
through the intercession of the women. It was the custom for 
husbands to give presents to their wives on this day. 

10. " December's Nones are gay. " December's Nones, December 5, 
was the festival of the Eaunalia in honor of the god Faunus. 

11. " The Great Twin Brethren." Castor and Pollux are generally 
alluded to in mythology as the sons of Leda, wife of Tyndareus king 



NOTES. 145 

of Sparta, and of Zeus disguised as a swan. More strictly speaking, the 
accepted myth is that, of four children born at a birth, Castor and 
Clytemnestra were the offspring of Tyndareus, and Pollux and Helen 
of Zeus. Of the so-called twins, then, Pollux alone was immortal, but 
such was his fraternal affection that, at his request, Zeus granted him, 
upon his brother's death, that they should possess a joint immortality 
on every other day. 

12. "They came o'er wild Parthenius. Mount Parthenius rises on 
the boundary between Argolis and Arcadia, where it approaches the 
Laconian frontier. 

13. --O'er Cirrha's dome." Cirrha in Phocis was the port of 
Delphi. Its site is now occupied by the miserable village of Magoula. 

14. "From where with flutes and dances." The flute w T as the 
national musical instrument of the Spartans, and their armies marched 
to its strains. 

15. "The City of two kings." Lacedsemon, or Sparta, was unique 
among Greek communities for its double kingship. The nearest ap- 
proach is found in the two consuls at Rome. 

16. " To where, by Lake Regillus." See Introduction to this poem. 

17. " In the lands of Tusculum." See " Horatius," note 23. 

18. " Corne's oaks." Pliny speaks of a grove dedicated to Diana at 
a place called Corne, " a suburban eminence of the Tusculan region." 
This is the modern Cornufelle, close by the crater which once contained 
the Lake Regillus. See Gell's " Topography of Rome and its Vicinity." 

19. "The Thirty Cities" of the Latin confederacy were, according 
to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Ardea, Aricia, BovillaB, Bubentum, 
Corniculum, Carventum, Cerceii, Corioli, Corbio, Cora. Fortinii (?), 
Gabii, Laurentum, Lavinium, Labicum, Lanuvium, Nomentum, Norba, 
Prseneste, Pedum, Querquetulum, Satricum. Scaptia. Setia, Tellense, 
Tibur, Tusculum, Toleria, Tricrinum(?), and Velitrae. 

20. " Since last the Great Twin Brethren 

Of mortal eyes were seen, 
Have years gone by an hundred 
And fourscore and thirteen." 

The date of the battle is supposed to have been 405 b.c. 

21. "Consul first in place." See "Horatius," note 32. There is 
some doubt as to whether the consul major was the older or the 
one first elected or the one presiding that month. 

22. "Gabii." A few ruins on the banks of the now drained Lago 
Castiglione near the Via Prsenestina, and about nine miles from the 
Porta Maggiore, mark the site of Gabii. 



146 NOTES. 

23. " Rome's Eastern Gate." Probably the Porta Esquilina, which 
stood near the present site of the arch of Gallienus. 

24. ' ' To bring the Tarquins home. " For the story of the Tarquins, 
see Livy, I, 35-60. 

25. "Conscript Fathers." See " Horatius," note 28. 

26. "Then choose we a Dictator." For full details of the choice 
and office of dictator consult dictionary of classical antiquities. 

27. "Camerium." Supposed to have occupied the site of the 
modern Palombara. It was taken and destroyed by the consul 
Yerginius (502 b.c.) for espousing the cause of the Tarquins. 
Dionysius, V, 21, 40, 49. 

28. "Axes twenty-four." The consuls being attended by twelve 
lictors each, the dictator, who took over the authority of both, was 
attended by the full twenty-four bearing the axes and rods. 

29. " He made JEbutius Elva 

His Master of the Knights." 

The dictator usually nominated his magister eqirftam, or lieutenant, 
though a name was sometimes suggested to him in the decree of his 
own appointment. 

30. " Setia's purple vineyards." Setia is now Sezze. Originally it 
was a town of the Volscians. It became a Roman colony after 382 b.c. 
Its wine was the imperial vintage most prized by Augustus and later 
emperors. 

31. " Xorba's ancient wall." The ruins of Norba are not far from 
Ninfa on the road from Rome to Terracina. 

32. " From where the Witch's Fortress 

O'erhangs the dark-blue seas." 

The allusion is to Cercii, of which only a few ruins remain. The 
promontory on which they stand, now known as Promontorio Circeo 
or Monte Cicello, was supposed to have been the site of the palace of 
the enchantress Circe, visited by Ulysses in the " Odyssey." 

33. " From the still, glassy lake that sleeps 

Beneath Aricia's trees." 

The modern village of Ariccia stands where the citadel of Aricia 
once stood. The ancient city lay a little to the southward. It was 
famous for its temple of Diana Aricina, situated in a grove on the border 
of Lake Nemorensis (now Nemi). Her priesthood could be attained 
only by a runaway slave who had been able to challenge the former 
incumbent by breaking a branch from a certain tree in the grove, and 



KOTES. 147 

to kill him in single combat. He then held the office (of Bex Xemo- 
rensis) until challenged and killed in like manner. 

34. "The drear banks of Ufens." The Ufens, now the Uffente, is 
a small stream which loses itself in the Pontine marshes between Sezze 
and Fiperno. 

35. "Cora," now Cori, was fabled to have been founded by the 
Trojan Dardanus. 

36. " The Laurentian jungle." The few ruins of Laurentum lie in 
the marshes near Torre di Pater no. 

37. "The green steeps whence Anio leaps." The Anio, now the 
Teverone, rises in the Sabine Apennines and flows westerly into the 
Tiber a little above Rome. 

38. "Velitne," now Velletri. 

30. " Mamilius, Prince of the Latin name." For Mamilius, see 

" Horatius," note 23. 

40. "A vest of purple flowed, 

Woven in the land of sunrise 

By Syria's dark -browed daughters." 

An allusion to the famous purple dye of the Tyrian weavers. 

41. "And by the sails of Carthage brought/' Carthage divided 
with Massilia (Marseilles) the commerce of the western Mediter- 
ranean ; but she gained steadily upon her rival. Hence where the 
author of "Horatius," who is supposed to have lived ninety years 
earlier, speaks of " Massilia's triremes," the present author uses " the 
sails of Carthage " as an equivalent expression. 

42. "Lavinium." About four miles southeast of the ruins of 
Laurentum (see above) lie those of Lavinium, named from Lavinia, 
the fabled daughter of King Latinus, and the wife of iEneas. That the 
cities of the marsh and coast have not lived again under Italianized 
names, as have many of their sisters of further inland, is due to the 
malaria that has devastated the region for so many centuries. The 
conditions are known to have been very different in early times, when 
the country was well wooded and drained. 

43. " False Sextus." See " Horatius," note 40. 

44. " Tiber," now Tivoli. 

45. "Pedum." The site of Pedum is probably that now occupied 
by the village of Gallicano. 

46. "Ferentinum of the rock." Ferentinum was an Etruscan city. 
Its ruins lie a little north of Viterbo. 

47. "There rode the Volscian succours." Contrary to ancient ens- 



148 NOTES. 

torn, the Latins have here marshalled their foreign allies in the centre 
instead of on the wings of their array. See also " Horatius," note 64. 

48. "The ancient king." King Tarqnin. 

49. " White as Mount Soracte." Mount Soracte rises southeast of 
Civita Castellana on the west bank of the Tiber. Horace speaks of it 
(" Carin.," I, 9) as white with snow. 

50. " On an Apulian steed." The best horses in ancient Italy came 
from the southern part of the peninsula, where the Greeks had doubt- 
less introduced Asiatic strains. The Campanians took especial pride 
in their cavalry. 

51. "Like the Pomptine fog at morn." The Pomptine marshes 
extend along the coast south of Rome from Cisterna to Terracina. 

52. "Prom the Digentian rock." The allusion is probably to the 
precipitous rock upon which the village of Rocca Giovine is perched. 
The stream at its base, now called the Licenza, was the ancient 
Digentia, spoken of by Horace. ("Epist.," I, 18, 104.) 

53. "Bandusia's flock." See Horace, "Carm," III, 13. 

54. " The crown he won, 

When proud PidenaB fell." 

The corona rnuralis (mural crown), made with gold and decorated 
with turrets, was given by the general to the first man who scaled the 
walls of a besieged city. 

55. "Pidense." This city, whose scanty ruins are found on the 
south bank of the Tiber, about five miles from the Porta Salaria, was 
originally the outpost Etruscan city, and the ally of Yeii in her wars 
with Rome. 

56. "That fell speckled snake." The common European viper. 
Its venom is said to be more dangerous the more southern the latitude. 

57. " There Valerius fought." Publius Valerius, who on the banish- 
ment of Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus succeeded him as colleague of 
Brutus in the consulship. (Livy, II, 2.) 

58. "RexofGabii, 

The priest of Juno's shrine." 

Most interesting among the ruins of Gabii are those of the celebrated 
temple of Juno Gabina. 

59. "The Velian hill." The Velia, numbered in the original 
Septimontium (see note 85), was a northeast spur of the Palatine 
Hill. 

60. "A Consular of Rome." One who had been consul. See 
note 57. 



NOTES. 149 

61. "I see an evil sight." After the manner of Homeric battles, 
the fall of iEbutius had evidently resulted in the defeat of the Roman 
left wing. 

62. " From Aufidus. " The Aufidus (now the Of ante) , the principal 
river of Apulia, flows from the Apennines into the Adriatic Sea. 

63. "ToPo." The Padua (now the Po) rises in the Cottian Alps. 
and flows easterly across Italy into the Adriatic Sea. 

64. '• The southern mountains." The Alban Hills. 

65. " The furies of thy brother." The Furies were the deities who 
haunted and punished those who had committed crimes which human 
justice had failed to avenge adequately. Such was the rape of Lucretia 
by Sextus Tarquinius. 

66. " In some rich Capuan's hall. " Capua, now Sta Maria cli Capua 
Yetere, was the second city of Italy, and was noted for its wealth and 
the effeminacy of its citizens. 

67. k; Well Samothracia knows us." In allusion to the legend that 
when the Argo was buffeted by storms in the northern JEgean, Orpheus 
prayed to the Samothracian gods, whereupon stars appeared upon the 
heads of Castor and Pollux, who were also members of the expedition, 
and the storm ceased. The island is now called Samothraki. 

68. " Cyrene knows us well." Cyrene was a Spartan colony on 
the north coast of Tripoli. Extensive ruins show its ancient impor- 
tance. Castor and Pollux were honored there with a great festival. 

69. "Gay Tarentum." Tarentum, now Taranto, was settled by 
Spartans about 707 b.c, and became one of the most powerful cities 
of Magna Graecia. 

70. '-The masts of Syracuse." Syracuse, perhaps the most famous 
of Greek colonial cities of the west, was settled by Dorians from Corinth. 

71. '• The proud Eurotas." The Eurotas (now the Vasili Potamo) 
rises in Arcadia and flows southward through Laconia, past Sparta, 
emptying into the Laconian Gulf. 

72. " Ardea." The site of Ardea is now marked by rather exten- 
sive ruins and a poor village that occupies the site of the citadel. 

73. " The hearth of Vesta." The remains of the circular temple 
of Vesta are still visible in the Forum, near that of Castor and Pollux. 
See also " Horatius," note 42. 

74. - ; The Golden Shield." See " Horatius," note 21. 

75. t; The Celtic plain." The plains of Lombardy, the valley of the 
Po. were inhabited by tribes of Celtic Gauls. 

76. k - Our Sire Quirinus." Quirinus, an ancient Roman (or Latin) 
war deity, was supposed to be the apotheosized Romulus. 



150 NOTES. 

77. "Lanuvium." The site of Lanuvium is now occupied by the 
small town of Civita Lavinia. 

78. " Nomentum " lay near the modern village of Mentana. 

79. u Arpinum" is now Arpino. It was the birthplace of Marius 
and of Marcus Tullius Cicero. As the greatest of the Tullian gens 
was born there, Macaulay calls its chief Tullus. 

80. ' ' Anxur." A town of the V olscians. Later it was called Tarra- 
cina, now Terracina. 

81. " The great Arician seer." The Bex Nemorensis. See note 33. 

82. " The High Pontiff." The Pontifex Maximus, head of the col- 
lege of pontiffs, was the highest religious dignitary in ancient Rome. 
The details of his selection, duties, dignities, etc., will be found in 
any dictionary of antiquities. The title was probably derived from 
pons (a bridge) and facere used in the sense of the Greek pefriv (to 
perform a sacrifice), because the pontiffs presided over certain annual 
sacrifices that were offered on the Sublician Bridge. It is also main- 
tained that facere should be construed " to make " (or build), and that 
the title means a bridge builder, because the first bridge over the Tiber 
was built by or under the auspices of the pontiffs. The name is espe- 
cially interesting as having been preserved as one of the titles of the 
popes of Rome. 

83. " In all Etruria's colleges." The Latin collegium was not used 
as now to designate an advanced educational institution, but meant 
simply a corporation of several collegce (colleagues) banded together 
for any religious or civil purpose. As Rome's hierarchy and ritual 
were drawn largely from Etruscan sources, it was natural to praise the 
head of the college of pontiffs by comparing him favorably with those 
of Etruria. 

84. " The great Asylum. " Temples, altars, sacred groves, etc. , were 
held throughout the classical world to be asylums or places of refuge 
for slaves, debtors, and criminals who fled to them. The allusion here 
is to the story told by Livy (I, 8), that Romulus, in order to increase 
the population of his city, established such a sanctuary on the slope of 
the Capitoline Hill. It was enclosed and known later as the "Two 
Groves." 

85. " The hill-tops seven." The original seven hills (Septimontiinn) 
were, according to Festus, the Palatium, Yelia, Cselius, Cermalus (on 
the northwest side of the Palatine), Fagutal (between the Arch of 
Gallienus and the Sette Sale), Oppius, and Cispius (both also parts of 
the Esquiline). 

86. " The fire that burns for aye." See " Horatius," note 42. 



NOTES. 151 

87. "Vesta." See note 73. 

88. " In harness on his right.' 1 It looks as if Macaulay had tripped 
here ; for while the Greeks looked for signs of good augury on the 
right, the Romans looked for them on the left. Both agreed in con- 
sidering the east lucky, but the Greek augur faced north, and the 
Roman, south. The criticism is perhaps trivial, since the appearance 
of supporting gods upon either hand of a general in battle would 
doubtless be considered favorable ; but it is a compliment to Macau- 
lay's care in such matters, that one wonders he did not place the good 
omen on the left. The same comment may be made upon the allusion 
in stanza XXXII. 

89. '• Safe comes the ship to haven.*' See Horace, " Carin." I, 3. 

VIRGINIA. 

1. "The three memorable laws": First, that one consul should 
always be a plebeian. Second, that no one should possess more than 
500 jugera of the public land nor keep upon it more than 100 head of 
large or 500 of small cattle. Third, that certain interests paid on 
borrowed money should be deducted from the debt, and that the bal- 
ance should be paid in three yearly instalments. 

2. " Fescennine verse. " Originally extemporaneous verses recited 
in dialogues by country people, principally at harvest and wedding 
festivities. They are said to have originated at the Etruscan town of 
Fescenium. Others say that the name is derived from fascium 
(enchantment), which the verses were supposed to ward off. At first 
they were confined to mutual satire and repartee, but with the 
deterioration of morals they became grossly obscene. 

3. " The story of Domitian's turbot." See Juvenal, " Sat." IV. 

4. "The bold Tribunes.'' See Introduction to this poem. 

5. "Fountains running wine." In the Golden Age of Greek 
mythology life was pictured as ideal. Truth and right were universal, 
war was unknown, the earth brought forth its increase without labor 
of ploughing and sowing ; perpetual spring reigned, with its wealth of 
flowers, and the rivers ran with milk and wine. 

6. " Maids with snaky tresses." A reference to the Gorgons of 
Greek mythology, the most famous of whom was Medusa, whose head 
turned those who saw it into stone. The story is prettily told in 
Bulfinch's "Age of Fable." 

7. •• Sailors turned to swine." Alluding to the tale of the com- 
panions of Ulysses changed into swine by Circe. (See " Battle of 



152 NOTES. 

Lake Regillus," note 32.) Circe was supposed to symbolize sensual 
indulgence, the pursuit of which was aptly fabled to change men into 
the lowest of the beasts. 

8. " The wicked Ten. " See Introduction to this poem, and, for 
the full story of the Decemvirate and its fall, Livy, III. 

9. . " King Tarquin." See Livy, I, 47-60. 

10. " Twelve axes." The consular insignia were the axes (secures) 
bound up in bundles of elm staves (fasces) . In some cases only the 
fasces were carried by the lictors. See "Battle of Lake Regillus," 
notes 1 and 28. 

11. " The client Marcus." The clients of the great houses were a 
distinct class in Rome. Though they seem to have had votes in the 
comitia centuriata for the election of magistrates, passage of laws, etc. , 
still they were not plebeians or Roman citizens in the full sense of the 
terms. The best parallel is found in the position of the feudal retainers 
of mediaeval Europe as opposed to that of the free commons of the 
towns. Each noble patron prided himself on the number of his clients ; 
the relation was hereditary, and, in later times, even cities and states 
took some noble family as their patron, usually that of the general who 
had subjugated them. 

12. "With her small tablets in her hand." Tabula? ceratce, upon 
which the ancients wrote with the sharp stylus of steel or ivory, were 
small, oblong pieces of wood, covered with wax, and hinged so as to 
fold together. 

13. " The Sacred Street." The Via Sacra probably ran from about 
where the Coliseum now stands, through the forum, which, together 
with the comitium, was practically embraced by its two branches, and 
to where the Clivus Capitolinus began its winding ascent of the 
Capitolium. 

14. " Lucrece." Eor the story of Lucretia, see Livy, I, 57 et seq. 

15. " The Alban Mountains" lie about twelve miles to the south- 
east of Rome. 

16. " The Seven Hills." See "Battle of Lake Regillus," note 85. 

17. " The Forum all alive." The forum in early times had on two 
sides porticoes of peperino columns between which were the stalls of 
schoolmasters and the shops of tradesmen, principally butchers. At a 
later period money-changers and bankers occupied most of the cells. 

18. "Punic." Carthaginian. 

19. "The year of the sore sickness." The pestilence of 463 b.c. 
afflicted Rome fourteen years before the episode of Virginia is sup- 
posed to have occurred. See Livy, III, 6. 



XOTES. 153 

20. ••Whereon three mouldering helmets, three rusting swords, are 
hung." The spoils of the Curatii slain by the Horatii in the war 

between Rome and Alba in the reign of Tullus Hostilius. See Livy, 
I, 24-2(3. 

21. "Be men to-day, Quirites." Quirites (from Quirium. the 
original Sabine city on the Quirinal and Capitolium, or from 
Quirinus. See "Battle of Lake Regillus," note 76) was the term 
applied to the citizens or people of Rome in their civil capacity. 
For the army to be so addressed implied deep disgrace and carried 
with it the inference that the soldiers were such no longer, and were 
worthy to be considered only as the rabble of the forum. The 
distinction was much more clearly defined in later times when 
the legionaries became more and more a professional class, and 
when the populace had degenerated. * Caesar and other generals 
brought mutinous troops to terms, on several occasions, by merely 
addressing them as Quirites. 

22. " For this did Servius give us laws." Servius Tullius, the 
sixth of the kings, was the defender of the commons against the 
patricians. His story is told in Livy, I. 

23. " Tarquin's evil seed. 1 ' See Livy, I, 57 et seq. 

24. " The axes of their sire." An allusion to the story of Brutus, 
the first Roman consul, who ordered his sons to execution for con- 
spiring for the return of the Tarquins. See Livy, II, 5. 

25. " Scawola's right hand." For the story of Mucius Scaevola, see 
Livy, II, 12. 

26. "One lord." A king. 

27. "The Sacred Hill." The sacred mount has been identified with 
the hill about three miles from Rome, just beyond where the Ponte 
Xomentano bridges the Anio (or Teverone). For the secession of 
the plebeians, and the first election of tribunes consequent thereon, 
see Livy, II, 32-33. Thereafter the ground was left open, occupied 
only by an altar to Jupiter, to whom the hill was consecrated. 

28. " They faced the Marcian fury." For the story of Caius (or 
Gnaeus) Marcins Coriolanus. see Livy, II, 33 et s c q. 

29. " They tamed the Fabian pride." The Fabian gens was often 
at deadly feud with the commons. Macaulay probably refers here to 
when, in 482 B.C., the soldiers refused to fight the Yeientes under 
the consul Quintus Fabius, who was obliged to return home unsuc- 
cessful and disgraced. 

30. "The fiercest Quinctius." Caeso Quinctius, son of Lucius 
Quinctius Cincinnatus, was exiled 461 b.c 



154 NOTES. 

31. "The haughtiest Claudius." Appius Claudius, the founder of 
the house. 

32. "Fasces." See note 10. 

33. " Still keep the holy fillets ; still keep the purple gown, 

The axes, and the curule chair, the car, and laurel crown." 

At this time all offices, religious, civil, and military, were in the 
hands of the patricians. Icilius uses the official insignia for the offices 
themselves : the holy fillets for the priesthoods, the curule chair for 
high magistracies, the trabea with its purple stripes, and the axes, for 
consulships and dictatorships, and the ivory chair car and laurel 
crown for the triumphing general. 

34. " Still fill your garners from the soil which our good swords 
have won." For this and other patrician privileges and abuses, see 
Introduction to this poem. 

35. "The Shades beneath us." The spirits of the dead in the 
realms of Pluto. 

36. "Your yet more cruel love." By ancient Roman law there 
could be no full and legal marriage between patricians and plebeians, 
but, four years after the episode of Virginia, the Lex Canuleia did 
away with this restriction. 

37. " High Pontiffs." See " Battle of Lake Regillus," note 82. 

38. " Ancient Alban kings." Alba Longa, not far from the modern 
Albano, the most ancient town in Latium, was said to have been built 
by Ascanius, the son of iEneas. It was called "Longa," because it 
stretched in a long line down the Alban mount. On its destruction 
by Tullus Hostilius its inhabitants were removed to Pome. 

39. " Capuan odors." A street in Capua (the Seplasia) was occu- 
pied entirely by the sellers of perfumes. See also "Battle of Lake 
Regillus," note 66. 

40. "Spanish gold." Spain was a leading source of the ancient 
gold supply. See "Prophecy of Capys," note 7. 

41. " Straightway Virginius led the maid." For the full story of 
Virginia, see Livy, III, 44 et seq. 

42. "The great sewer." The Cloaca Maxima, the building of 
which is assigned to Tarquinius Priscus and which is still intact and 
in use. 

43. " My civic crown." The civic crown, made of oak leaves, was 
given to a soldier who saved the life of a Roman citizen in battle. 

44. "The Volscian." See " Horatius," note 64. 

45. "Dwellers in the nether gloom, avengers of the slain." The 



NOTES. 155 

deities of the under-world, over whom Pluto and Proserpina presided : 
iEacus, Minos, and Rhadamanthus, the judges, but more especially 
the Furies, Alecto, Tisiphone, and Meg^era, whose duty it was to 
punish the crimes of those too strong for human justice. 

46. "Ten thousand pounds of copper." The earliest Roman coin, 
the ces or as, was made of copper or bronze and weighed a pound. 
Before that time (the reign of Servius Tullius ?) lumps or ingots of 
the metal were weighed out as a circulating medium. 

47. ,; A cypress crown." The cypress has been emblematic of 
mourning from the earliest classical times. 

48. " The Pincian Hill." This hill was not included in the original 
city, but lay north of the walls of Servius. The walls of Aurelian 
enclosed the greater part of it. 

49. " The Latin Gate." The Porta Capena, the most important of 
the southern gates in the Servian wall, is doubtless meant. The Via 
Appia and the Via Latina started from it in one road, separating half- 
way to the Aurelian Wall, through which they issued by two gates. — 
the Appian and the Latin. It is quite possible that in early times the 
Porta Capena was called also Latina. 

50. "Caius of Corioli." See note 28. 

51. " The yoke of Furius." Marcus Furius Camillus. 

52. " The Calabrian sea-marks." High points along the Calabrian 
coast (the southeastern part of Italy), by which the ancient mariners, 
being without compass, steered their course. 

53. "The grea,t Thunder-Cape." Acroceraunium. on the coast of 
Epirus (Dion Cassius, XLI, 44), now Cape Linguetta. 

54. " Mount Palatine." See " Horatius," note 58. 

THE PROPHECY OF CAPYS. 

1. " Now slain is King Amulius. " The story of the birth of Romulus 
and Remus, the burying alive of their mother, the vestal, Rea Silvia, 
and the exposure, rescue, and return of the twins, is told by Livy. I, 
3 et seq. 

2. " Alba Longa." See " Virginia," note 38. 

3. '-The throne of Aventine." Among several suggested deriva- 
tions of the word " Aventine " is that it is named from Aventinus. an 
early Alban king who was buried there (Livy, I, 3). Aventinus was 
thus a predecessor of Amulius on the throne of Alba Longa. 

4. " The Pontiff Camers." The religious hierarch would naturally 
be the one to pronounce sentence upon a vestal who had broken her 
vow of chastity. See also " Battle of Lake Regillus," note 82. 



156 NOTES. 

5. "A poplar crown." The poplar was sacred to Hercules, and 
the poplar crown was emblematic of courage and adventure. Horace, 
" Carm.," I, 7. Hercules was especially reverenced by Romulus. See 
Livy, I, 7. 

6. " His yellow foam." See " Horatius," note 24. 

7. "In the Tartessian mine." The district of Tartessus, noted 
for its mines, lay on the coast of Spain, about the mouth of the Bsetis 
(now Guadalquivir). It is said to have been the Tarshish of Scrip- 
ture narrative. See also "Virginia," note 40. 

8. "The Libyan brine." The eastern Mediterranean, a scornful 
allusion to the mercantile preeminence of Carthage. 

9. " Thou shalt not drink from amber ; 

Thou shalt not rest on down. 

Amber, down, etc., signify the luxuries of effeminate states, but 
which are not for Rome. 

10. " Arabia shall not steep thy locks." Alluding to the perfumes 
that were imported largely from Arabia. 

11.* "Nor Sidon tinge thy gown." A reference to the purple dye 
made in the cities of the Tyrian coast. 

12. "Vesta's sacred fire." See "Horatius," note 42. 

13. " Pomona loves the orchard." Pomona was a Roman goddess 
who presided over fruit trees. 

14. " And Liber loves the vine." Liber was the Roman Bacchus. 

15. " And Pales loves the straw-built shed. " Pales was the Roman 
goddess of cattle and pasture land. 

16. " And Venus loves the whispers 

Of plighted youth and maid." 

Venus was the Roman goddess of love, afterwards identified with 
the Greek Aphrodite, from whom, however, her original conception 
differed quite considerably, and for the better. It would seem as if 
the love-goddess idea becomes more licentious as it is traced east. 
In modern times the name of Venus is used almost universally for 
Aphrodite. 

17. "Thine, Roman, is the pilum." The pilum, the characteristic 
weapon of the Roman legionary, was a heavy javelin with a staff four 
and a half feet long, and a barbed iron head of the same length, but 
which was fitted halfway down the staff, making a total length of about 
six and three-fourths feet. Its advantage lay in that it could be used 
at a greater distance than the longest spear, while its weight gave it a. 



NOTES. 157 

destructive force far beyond that of missiles from the bow or sling. 
One can imagine the effect upon a Greek phalanx of showers of such 
weapons fully capable of piercing the strongest defensive armor. 

18. "The even trench, the bristling mound." Few matters of 
antiquity are more interesting than the Roman camp with its mathe- 
matical proportions and division of space, its ditch and rampart set 
with stakes, and so elaborate in its unvaried details, that a walled city 
might almost be said to spring into being at each night's halt. Many 
cities, in fact, owe their origin to Roman camps, as is evidenced through- 
out England by the frequent terminations "Chester "and "cester" 
(from the Latin castra). 

19. "The legion's ordered line." The legion's strong yet flexible 
order of battle is also most interesting, and the whole subject of 
Roman military affairs and discipline may be found treated in 
" Anthon" or any leading work on Roman antiquities. 

20. "The wheels of triumph." The wheels of the ivory car which 
bore the triumphing general along the Sacred Way, up the Clivus 
Capitolinus, and to the steps leading to the Capitol. For full 
descriptions of a triumph see "Anthon" and other works on Roman 
antiquities. 

21. " Soft Capua's curled revellers." See "Battle of Lake Regillus," 
note 66. 

22. "The Lucumoes of Arnus." The Etruscan nobles who held 
sway over the valley of the Arnus, or Arno. See " Horatius," note 36. 

23. " The proud Samnite's heart of steel." The Samnite wars were 
the bitterest of the inter-Italian struggles that led up to the supremacy 
of Rome. The first was from 343 to 341 b.c, the second from 326 to 
304, and the third from 299 to 290. 

24. "The huge earth-shaking beast." The Greeks, from the time 
of Alexander, used elephants in war. These animals carried little 
turrets containing archers and slingers. Frequently they were pro- 
vided with some defensive armor, and scythelike blades were attached 
to their tusks. Trained and well driven, they proved formidable adver- 
saries against the dense array of the phalanx. The Romans met them 
for the first time in the war against Pyrrhus ; but, once accustomed to 
their appearance and attack, the comparatively open legionary line of 
battle was readily adapted to receive and defeat it. 

25. "The bold Epirotes, wedged close with shield and spear." 
The Epirotes, like all Greeks from the time of the Macedonian suprem- 
acy, depended mainly upon their phalanx. This, in the days of Philip 
and Alexander, consisted of 6000 heavy-armed infantry with spears 



158 NOTES. 

18 to 20 feet long, and drawn up 16 deep in a solid mass. The num- 
ber varied considerably at different times, and we read in " JElian" 
of a phalanx of 16,000 men divided into four divisions. The shock of 
such a body, if unbroken, must have been terrific. When once broken, 
however, it was helpless, and the pilum was the weapon best adapted 
to tear fatal rents in it. 

26. f* Rome's short broadsword." The Roman sword, though 
longer than the Greek, had still a short blade. It was heavy and two- 
edged, adapted for both cutting and thrusting. 

27. "The Red King." The name Pyrrhus signifies, in Greek, 
u red-haired." 

28. " Is not the gown washed white ? " See the Introduction to this 
poem. 

29. " Manius Curius." See Introduction to this poem. 

30. ' ' The third embroidered gown." The toga picta, white embroid- 
ered with gold, was worn over the tunica palmata, or flowered tunic, 
by the triumping general. 

31. " The third lofty car." See note 20. 

32. "The third green crown." A crown of laurel was worn by the 
triumphing general. 

33. "The steeds of Rosea." Rosea was the name given to the 
fertile plain extending along the valley of the Yelinus (Velino) near 
Reate (Rieti). It was famous for its breeds of asses, mules, and 
horses. See Virg. "i£n.," VII, 712; Varro, " De Re Rustica," I, 
7, § 10, II, 1, § 16; III, 2, § 10, and Cicero, "Ad Atticus," IV, 15. 

34. " Mevania's bull." Mevania was an ancient name of the Cli- 
tumnus. See "Horatius," note 14. 

35. "The Sacred Way." See "Virginia," note 13. 

36. "The suppliant's Grove." See "Battle of Lake Regillus," 
note 84. 

37 # " Then where, o'er two bright havens, 

The towers of Corinth frown." 
Situated upon an isthmus, Corinth had two harbors, one on the 
Saronic Gulf and one on the Gulf of Corinth. 

38. " The gigantic King of Day. " The wonderful statue of Phoebus, 
the Sun-god, the national deity of the Rhodians. It was known as the 
Colossus of Rhodes and was reckoned among the " Seven Wonders of 
the World." See Introduction to this poem. 

39. " Where soft Orontes murmurs." The Orontes, now the Nahr 
El-Ahsy, rises in southern Syria and flows northward, until, circling 
Antioch, it empties southwesterly into the Mediterranean. Antioch, 



NOTES. 159 

built by Seleucus Xicator, was a city of wonderful magnificence. See 
also Introduction to this poem. 

•40. u Dark-red colonnades." The red granite of Syene, and much 
of the sandstone used in the building of the great Egyptian temples 
and palaces, gave them a rich reddish tone, while the ruins at Luxor, 
Karnac, and at other points along the Nile tell us of colonnades that 
must indeed have seemed endless. 

41. "Byrsa's thousand masts." Byrsa was the citadel of Carthage. 
See also " Battle of Lake Regillus," note 41. 

42. u Where through the sand of morning-land 

The camel bears the spice." 

Arabia, Mesopotamia, and Media, across whose deserts the Indian 
caravans brought the spices of the far East. 

43. "Where Atlas flings his shadow." The great Atlas range or 
ranges extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the eastern border of 
Mauritania, or across the modern Morocco into Algiers. The fable 
was, that Atlas, whose bulk surpassed that of all men. was king of the 
farthest west, and that when he offered violence instead of hospitality 
to Perseus, the hero held toward him the head of the Gorgon, Medusa, 
whereupon he became stone — a mountain upon whose top the gods 
set heaven with all the stars, that they might be supported in place. 



Leading Texts for Higher Schools 

A New English Grammar. By James M. Milne, Ph. D. Pp. 
384. Introductory price, 75 cents. 

An Elementary Grammar cf the Spanish Language* By Louis A. 
Loiseaux, Assistant Instructor in Spanish, Columbia Univer- 
sity. Pp. 190. (In press.) 

An Elementary Spanish Reader, By Louis A. Loiseaux, Assistant 
Instructor in Spanish, Columbia University. (In press.) 

New Complete Arithmetic* By David M. Sensenig and Robert 
F. Anderson, Instructors in Mathematics, State Normal 
School, West Chester, Pa. Pp. 437. Price, 90 cents. 

Elements of Gvil Government* By William A. Mowry, Ph.D., 
for twenty years Senior Principal of the English and Clas- 
sical School, Providence, R. I. Pp. 226. Pr:ce, 72 cents. 
Special State Editions. Each contains some 70 additional 
pages describing the government of the particular state. 
Price, 90 cents each. 

Introduction to the Study of Economics. By Charles Jesse 
Bullock, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Economics, Williams 
College. New and Revised Edition. Pp. 581. Price, $1.28. 

Elements of Physics* By S. P. Meads, Professor of Natural 
Science, Oakland High School, Oakland, Cal. Pp. 288. 
Price, 72 cents. 

Elements of Chemistry* By S. P. Meads, Professor of Natural 
Science, Oakland High School, Oakland, Cal. Pp. 178. 
Price, 80 cents. 

An Elementary Experimental Chemistry. By John B. Ekeley, 
Former Science Master, St. Paul's School, Garden City, 
N.Y. Pp. 264. Price, 90 cents. 

Qualitative Chemical Analysis* By John Howard Appleton, A.M., 
Professor of Chemistry, Brown University. Pp. 144. Price, 
75 cents. 

Quantitative Chemical Analysis* By John Howard Appleton, 
A.M. Pp. 184. Price, $1.25. 

The Silver Series of English and American Classics* The best 
works of the best authors, carefully annotated and explained 
by leading scholars and critics. Essays and Orations ; Fiction 
and General Literature; Poems, Ballads and Lyrics. Paper and 
cloth; portraits. Prices, 15 cents to 72 cents. Complete 
list will be sent on application. 



SILVER, BURDETT & COMPANY 

NEW YORK BOSTON CHICAGO 



m tfWI 



m 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: April 2009 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVATION 

1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724)779-2111 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




014 493 820 3 §\ 



mm 



I 



